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Even though the official unemployment rate has been hovering around record lows in recent years, wage growth has stayed stagnant, a new study from Pew Research reveals. In fact, the real average wage, which Pew defines as "the wage after accounting for inflation" has roughly the same purchasing power as it did 40 years ago. And while some workers have seen gains, most of the increases have gone to those who were already the highest-paid
Inflation has been eating up Trump's tax cuts. For starters, gas isn't as cheap as it used to be. Home and car insurance is like health insurance. It always goes up.
Oh wow, look at that. The tax cut didn't actually increase wages. This can't be! The right-wing said it would!!
Could it be that.... the liberals are right again?
Tax cuts improve the economy and that improves people's incomes.
A lot has changed since 1974. Environmental expenses now cost hundreds of billions of $ every year. In 1974 they were a relative pittance. That might have improved health but that improvement doesn't show up in income. The cost is eventually paid by lower output of other goods, which is reflected in output and output parallels income. (To the extent all this spending has improved the lives or animals, birds, etc.: that doesn't show up in income either.)
Education spending has skyrocketed. Improvement in smartness, for lack of a better term, has been hard to find. All that extra money is a cost, a cost with no measurable improvement in income.
Health care spending has also gone out of sight. People live longer, maybe, as a result. Again, the cost shows up but the benefit doesn't.
It isn't a matter of money or spending money. It's a matter of devoting resources, actual physical resources. An extra person employed in health care is one less person available to work in an office. Concrete used to build a school was not used to build a factory and platinum used in a catalytic converter was not available for some other use.
These are the real costs of which money is only a proxy measure.
The obnoxious tax cuts for the rich will trickle down any day now. Just give it another 30 years and if that doesn’t work we’ll enact negative rates on the wealthy to stimulate wage growth.
Tax cuts improve the economy and that improves people's incomes.
A lot has changed since 1974. Environmental expenses now cost hundreds of billions of $ every year. In 1974 they were a relative pittance. That might have improved health but that improvement doesn't show up in income. The cost is eventually paid by lower output of other goods, which is reflected in output and output parallels income. (To the extent all this spending has improved the lives or animals, birds, etc.: that doesn't show up in income either.)
Education spending has skyrocketed. Improvement in smartness, for lack of a better term, has been hard to find. All that extra money is a cost, a cost with no measurable improvement in income.
Health care spending has also gone out of sight. People live longer, maybe, as a result. Again, the cost shows up but the benefit doesn't.
It isn't a matter of money or spending money. It's a matter of devoting resources, actual physical resources. An extra person employed in health care is one less person available to work in an office. Concrete used to build a school was not used to build a factory and platinum used in a catalytic converter was not available for some other use.
These are the real costs of which money is only a proxy measure.
And the top 0.1% have seen skyrocketing increases in income at the same time.
You are getting scammed. Why defend the crooks with these excuses? As labor unions have been crushed, so have wages flatlined. And the corrupt elites at the top use their increased wealth and power to buy favorable legislation, weaken anti-trust laws, erode the minimum wage, push for anti-worker trade deals, destroy unions and give themselves no-bid government contracts.
And the top 0.1% have seen skyrocketing increases in income at the same time.
You are getting scammed. Why defend the crooks with these excuses? As labor unions have been crushed, so have wages flatlined. And the corrupt elites at the top use their increased wealth and power to buy favorable legislation, weaken anti-trust laws, erode the minimum wage, push for anti-worker trade deals, destroy unions and give themselves no-bid government contracts.
All of what you say is true except about labor unions. But it has always been true, before 1974 and after. The factors I suggested were insignificant before 1974 have grown like toadstools since then.
All of what you say is true except about labor unions. But it has always been true, before 1974 and after. The factors I suggested were insignificant before 1974 have grown like toadstools since then.
Nope. The stagnation for the typical worker is a typical US phenomenon. In the rest of the developed world, they have not seen skyrocketing inequality, even though they of course have seen improvement in air quality, health etc. A concerted effort has been taken place in America, where the ruling class have gone to war against ordinary workers, accelerating greatly from the 1980s onwards. As unions were crushed, bargaining power of workers drastically weakened, and the democratic process undermined by billions of dollars, ordinary workers naturally see stagnation or decline. The policies enacted are designed that way on purpose.
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