51 percent of Americans approve of the handling of the economy, even though we voted for Trump

[Jack Davenport]

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/25/majority-of-americans-approve-of-trumps-handling-of-the-economy.html

It doesn’t take a degree from Marquette to see that.

 

[Johan]

Yep, the economy's great, that's a fact no one can argue. The problem is the money doesn't trickles down

Are you a ‘production and nonsupervisory’ worker? Your wages are falling


The average hourly wage paid to a key group of American workers has fallen from last year when accounting for inflation, as an economy that appears strong by several measures continues to fail to create bigger paychecks, the federal government said Tuesday.

For workers in “production and nonsupervisory” positions, the value of the average paycheck has actually declined in the past year. For those workers, average “real wages” – a measure of pay that takes inflation into account – fell from $22.62 in May 2017 to $22.59 in May 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.
This pool of workers includes those in manufacturing and construction jobs, as well as all “nonsupervisory” workers in service industries such health care or fast food. The group accounts for about four-fifths of the privately employed workers in America, according to BLS.

Without adjusting for inflation, these “nonsupervisory” workers saw their average hourly earnings jump 2.8 percent from last year. But that was not enough to keep pace with the 2.9 percent increase in inflation, which economists attributed to rising gas prices.
“This is very likely because of the spike in oil prices eating into inflation-adjusted earnings,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist and strategist at Decision Economics. “We pay for energy-related costs out of our wages, out of our compensation. And it’s making a real impact.”

The fall in those wages has alarmed some economists, who say paychecks should be getting fatter at a time when unemployment is low and businesses are hiring.
“This is odd and remarkable,” said Steve Cornell Kyle, an economist at Cornell University. “You would not normally see this kind of thing unless there were some kind of external shock, like a bad hurricane season, but we haven’t had that.”

The falling wages promise to exacerbate historic levels of U.S. inequality. Within the labor force, it means workers who were already making less are falling further behind. And if private laborers as a whole are seeing their earnings flatten while the economy as a whole grows at an annual rate of more than 2 percent, that means the gains are going almost exclusively to people already at the top of the economic ladder, economists say.
“The extra growth we are seeing in the economy is going somewhere: to capital owners and people at the top of the income distribution,” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Labor Department, noting workers’ share of corporate income remained relatively low as of January. “And what we’ve seen is in recent period a much higher share of total income earned going to owners of capital.”

Stephen Moore, a conservative economist at the Heritage Foundation and campaign adviser to President Trump, said the figures were troubling. But he added that the drop in real wages could be a reflection of the economy adding low-end jobs, rather than declining values further up the chain. If so, he said, that would be a sign of economic vitality, as the economy pulled in unemployed workers.
But other experts doubted that argument. “For that to be true, you’d have to see that the jobs coming back are particularly low-wage jobs,” said Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “There was some evidence of that initially in the recovery, but I don’t think the evidence supports the idea.”

But why is wage growth so tepid?
This problem is not new: Slow wage growth bedeviled the Obama administration as well.

Economists broadly disagree about the cause of persistently weak wage growth, offering a variety of possible explanations.
Ernie Tedeschi, a former Treasury official under President Barack Obama, said the unemployment rate may create a misleadingly positive impression of the health of the jobs market, given how many Americans dropped out of the labor force during the Great Recession.
Weaker union rights for workers may also be cutting into their ability to force pay increases from their bosses, said Jared Bernstein, who served as an economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump officials pointed to what they called a strong growth in private business investment in the first quarter of 2018, after the tax law’s passage, and expressed optimism that the law would translate into higher wages for workers in the near future. They also dismissed the allegation that the data disproved their claim that the tax law would raise the average worker’s wage by $4,000.
“The law is just six months old,” said DJ Nordquist, chief of staff for Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, in an email. “Our estimates [of the tax law’s benefits] were for ‘steady state’ – when the full effects of the law spread throughout the economy, which will take years, as we always said it would.”

But to Democrats, the tepid wage growth helps bolster their claim that the Republican tax law was overwhelmingly geared toward the wealthy and that a more direct role for the federal government is needed to help workers.
“Today, while the cost of health care, prescription drugs, gasoline and housing soar, the average worker, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is now making slightly less than he or she made one year ago after adjusting for inflation,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an email to The Washington Post, arguing for a higher minimum wage and a single-payer health-care plan.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06...nonsupervisory-worker-your-wages-are-falling/


More money for the rich, at the expenses of the average americans and the poors if necessary, that's what Republicans want

 

[Jack Davenport]

Yeah, because the 51 percent that approve haven’t felt the effect of the trickling down. During Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game in 1962 his teammates Paul Azirin, Tom Meschery and Al Attles all eclipsed their normal scoring averages and scored in double figures due to the trickle down effect of Chamberlain being highly defended.

 

[Johan]

Yeah, because the 51 percent that approve haven’t felt the effect of the trickling down.

They most probably haven't. But they heard on every news channel, in every paper that the stock market is doing good, that the economy is doing good so they think the economy's doing good. And they're right to think so.
But the economy is about the businesses, the corporations, not about the average workers.

The datas show that the economy is doing good but they also show that the money doesn't trickles down.
Once again Trumptards cherry-pick the datas they like and reject those they don't like...

 

[Jack Davenport]

They most probably haven't. But they heard on every news channel, in every paper that the stock market is doing good, that the economy is doing good so they think the economy's doing good. And they're right to think so.
But the economy is about the businesses, the corporations, not about the average workers.

The datas show that the economy is doing good but they also show that the money doesn't trickles down.
Once again Trumptards cherry-pick the datas they like and reject those they don't like...

Black unemployment is at historical lows. That is an example and tangible result of prosperity trickling down.
Our recovery has just begun so the full effects won’t be felt immediately. They will be felt to re-elect Trump in 2020.
Fuck you, I don’t give a shit who likes you. You’re ideology is just as destructive as any other libshit.

 

[bodie54]

But they heard on every news channel, in every paper that the stock market is doing good

The dow is actually down over 500 points so far this year.
If that trend holds it'll be the first loser year since 2008.

 

[Jack Davenport]

The dow is actually down over 500 points so far this year.
If that trend holds it'll be the first loser year since 2008.

Hope springs eternal, I guess.

 

[Rey C.]

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06...nonsupervisory-worker-your-wages-are-falling/

But to Democrats, the tepid wage growth helps bolster their claim that the Republican tax law was overwhelmingly geared toward the wealthy and that a more direct role for the federal government is needed to help workers.

If the only solution that Senator Sanders has is raising the minimum wage and going to a single payer health insurance plan, how does this improve the incomes of middle class working families? We're talking about incomes here, right? Given that middle class families don't make minimum wage, what would that do? Only if raising the minimum drove up the wages of middle class people would that do anything - and that would lead to widespread wage inflation (meaning products and services would just cost everyone more, which would negate wage gains). As I've been saying for a LONG time on here, once you raise the minimum wage to a certain level for low skilled jobs, companies are incentivized to invest in automation and reduce their reliance on lower skilled workers. Why are we seeing all of these remodeled McDonald's installing kiosks and relying more on apps to process orders? Ding-ding = it reduces labor/operating costs. Especially in food service and retail, I've been surprised at how rapidly this is already happening. How are you helping these people if their wages are increased by 25%, but 25% of the workforce gets fired?

Look, I'm not in favor of beating down people who are barely getting by now. And I know for sure that I don't have all the answers. But IMO the best way to raise people up is not by encouraging them to stay in low paid jobs from cradle to grave. You raise them up by providing opportunities (education, training, etc.) that will allow them to move up the income ladder. Companies are begging for workers with skills right now. And many of those jobs are going unfilled. I know not every 45+ year old feels like they can learn the new skills necessary to get into an area that's in demand. But too many people won't/can't put forth the effort to try. And that's the factor that people like Sanders refuse to recognize. Instead of just saying that Big Brother is THE answer (and certainly the government can have a role to play), Sanders and those who lean toward socialistic thinking must realize that people must be allowed to take the wheel on their own car and determine their own fates. Help those who can't help themselves. But those who won't help themselves? :dunno: Hey, you can't really help people who won't help themselves, can you?

 

[Rey C.]

The dow is actually down over 500 points so far this year.
If that trend holds it'll be the first loser year since 2008.

Right. But that's just 30 stocks. It doesn't really represent "the stock market", right? Where we are now on the DJIA is about a 1.9% loss YTD. The S&P 500 (a better general market measure) is at a gain of about 1.6%. And the NASDAQ (mostly tech stocks) is up about 9.1% YTD. The average IRA or 401K/403B is probably flat to slightly up for the year so far. Last year's 20% +/- gains were outsized, and to be honest, we're overdue for a correction of at least 10% (which would be over 2400 Dow points and 270 S&P 500 points). It's actually healthy for things to shake out periodically, otherwise you end up with a bubble that will eventually pop.

From Peter Oppenheaimer of Goldman:

"Drawdowns within bull markets of 10 percent or more are not uncommon," Oppenheimer added. "The average bull market 'correction' is 13 percent over four months and takes just four months to recover."