NYTimes - Americans' Meager Income Gains (Hispanics, companies, cost, economic)

[ParkTwain]

Read this editorial very carefully. You won't be seeing too much discussion of this issue by ANY of the presidential candidates for 2008.

A Sobering Census Report: Americans’ Meager Income Gains - New York Times
(emphasis added)
//
August 29, 2007
...
The Census Bureau reported yesterday that median household income rose 0.7 percent last year — its second annual increase in a row — to $48,201. The share of households living in poverty fell to 12.3 percent from 12.6 percent in 2005. This seems like welcome news, but a deeper look at the belated improvement in these numbers — more than five years after the end of the last recession — underscores how the gains from economic growth have failed to benefit most of the population.

The median household income last year was still about $1,000 less than in 2000, before the onset of the last recession. In 2006, 36.5 million Americans were living in poverty — 5 million more than six years before, when the poverty rate fell to 11.3 percent.

And what is perhaps most disturbing is that it appears this is as good as it’s going to get.

Sputtering under the weight of the credit crisis and the associated drop in the housing market, the economic expansion that started in 2001 looks like it might enter history books with the dubious distinction of being the only sustained expansion on record in which the incomes of typical American households never reached the peak of the previous cycle. It seems that ordinary working families are going to have to wait — at the very minimum — until the next cycle to make up the losses they suffered in this one. There’s no guarantee they will.

The gains against poverty last year were remarkably narrow. The poverty rate declined among the elderly, but it remained unchanged for people under 65. Analyzed by race, only Hispanics saw poverty decline on average while other groups experienced no gains.

The fortunes of middle-class, working Americans also appear less upbeat on closer consideration of the data. Indeed, earnings of men and women working full time actually fell more than 1 percent last year.

This suggests that when household incomes rose, it was because more members of the household went to work, not because anybody got a bigger paycheck. The median income of working-age households, those headed by somebody younger than 65, remained more than 2 percent lower than in 2001, the year of the recession.

Over all, the new data on incomes and poverty mesh consistently with the pattern of the last five years, in which the spoils of the nation’s economic growth have flowed almost exclusively to the wealthy and the extremely wealthy, leaving little for everybody else.

Standard measures of inequality did not increase last year, according to the new census data. But over a longer period, the trend becomes crystal clear: the only group for which earnings in 2006 exceeded those of 2000 were the households in the top five percent of the earnings distribution. For everybody else, they were lower.
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[mrsengle]

The Census Bureau reported yesterday that median household income rose 0.7 percent last year — its second annual increase in a row — to $48,201.

The median household income last year was still about $1,000 less than in 2000

I went to census.gov and looked at this. The median household income (as reported in the 2000 census) was $41,994. The median family income (2000 census) was reported at $50,046.

$50,046-$48,201 = $1,845 (Is this 'around' $1,000 the author was referring to?)

This looks like a HUGE discrepency. Did I make a mistake looking at this data?

[ParkTwain]

No comments from all the Repubs on this board about this editorial? How interesting!

[Rita Mordio]

Using a general idea of the numbers involved (thanks mrsengle for looking at census.gov), it's true that the general population does not and will not reap the benefits of the growth in wealth of companies. Those with power control the wealth. It seems like a crime.. but it's how current CEOs are.

In their opinion, why should the lowest of lows in the companies (like cashiers) see a raise in pay because their hard work (and lower pay) has equated to a higher profit margin? After all they're just cashiers.

Sarcasm aside, a company won't make good profit if it pays the worker bees better. Instead, paying the worker bees more only raises the price of the goods/services made or offered. Hence, outsourcing of jobs.

For example, there used to be a Ford plant in Norfolk. They made the F-150's. People were making $20+/hr (thanks to the Union) to do this almost 100% mechanized job. All they did was babysit the machinery. Problem is, because of the HIGH cost of labor to build the trucks vs the cost and sales of the truck, a decision was made to move the plant to Mexico.

Also, the fact that bachelor degrees are handed out like halloween candy make it so that people have to go for MORE education, then, because all-of-a-sudden, everybody has a mass of degrees, they are having to negotiate pay so that they don't lose the opportunity to work at such-and-such company to somebody who's willing to accept a lower pay than you.

Companies have more choices, hence, they can pay people less.

[dreamofmonterey]

Originally Posted by ParkTwain

No comments from all the Repubs on this board about this editorial? How interesting!

lol. Even if the Census is skewed- it still has alot of infromation left out...so the median would be an optimistic number, at best.

[rd2007]

it's a nyt article, which I pretty much see as fraud anymore. As for me, my personal household income has almost doubled in the past year, so I'm super happy.. then again I work..

[fishmonger]

Originally Posted by rd2007

it's a nyt article, which I pretty much see as fraud anymore. As for me, my personal household income has almost doubled in the past year, so I'm super happy.. then again I work..

What's your preferred source of information?

[rd2007]

in your average day I'll read the local paper and watch news on NBC, CNN, and FOX. I rarely believe any of them, but I do know that what my bank account tells me every month is indeed 100% true... unless it's one of those months where B of A decides to do a random $500-2000 withdrawal.. it used to freak me out, but now I expect it a few times per year. They're pretty retarded, but I have everything attached to them and the ATM's are everywhere..

[mrsengle]

unless it's one of those months where B of A decides to do a random $500-2000 withdrawal.. it used to freak me out, but now I expect it a few times per year. They're pretty retarded, but I have everything attached to them and the ATM's are everywhere..

LOL!!! I totally hear you on that!

[TnHilltopper]

Originally Posted by ParkTwain

No comments from all the Repubs on this board about this editorial? How interesting!

Well I am no longer a Republican but I am still fairly conservative. I thought it was a pretty decent analysis but to be honest, I don't need that much nuance to see people using rolled pennies at Walmart to buy a 50' hose to siphon gas out of their neighbors Honda to get the point that times are not so great for us peons down here.

However, here in rural Appalachia, the economics are probably not the best example to cross section in comparison to the rest of the country.