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posted by janrinok on Thursday June 21 2018, @09:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the all-governments-tell-lies dept.

AlterNet reports

When Republicans in Congress passed a big, fat tax break bill in December, they insisted it meant American workers would be singing "Happy Days Are Here Again" all the way to the bank. The payoff from the tax cut would be raises totaling $4,000 to $9,000, the President's Council of Economic Advisers assured workers. But something bad happened to workers on their way to the repository. They never got that money.

In fact, their real wages declined because of higher inflation. At the same time, the amount workers had to pay in interest on loans for cars and credit cards increased. And, to top it off, Republicans threatened to make workers pay for the tax break with cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. So now, workers across America are wondering, "Where's that raise?". It's nowhere to be found.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week that wages for production and nonsupervisory workers decreased by 0.1 percent from May 2017 to May 2018 when inflation is factored in. The compensation for all workers together, including supervisors, rose an underwhelming 0.1 percent from April 2018 to May 2018.

That's not what congressional Republicans promised workers. They said corporations, which got the biggest, fattest tax cuts of all, would use that extra money to increase wages. Some workers got one-time bonuses and an even smaller number received raises. But not many. The group Americans for Tax Fairness estimates it's 4.3 percent of all U.S. workers.

The New York Times story about this record breaker describes the phenomena this way: "Companies buy back their shares when they believe they have nothing better to do with their money than to return capital to shareholders." So despite promises from the GOP and the President's Council of Economic Advisers, corporations believed further enriching their own executives and shareholders was a much better way to use the money than increasing workers' wages--wages that have been stagnant for decades.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by captain normal on Friday June 22 2018, @01:09AM (7 children)

    by captain normal (2205) on Friday June 22 2018, @01:09AM (#696507)

    Most workers really don't have money to invest as they are living hand to mouth. So most people do not invest in the stock market. Here where I live, in central California, most people cannot even invest in buying their own homes. That was something just about everyone could do in the '50s and '60s. That gave them an equity cushion that they could fall back on. Inflation in everything but wages is destroying the country as the rich get richer and more and more poor are created.

    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.
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    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @03:08AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @03:08AM (#696571)

    And here you are, captaining the new normal. #SAD

    ess joooke comrade

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @07:25AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @07:25AM (#696619)

    The rich can get richer faster when they can drive the poor into debt slavery... as not only are the poor paying for their stuff, you've also got 'em paying usury.

    And the poor seem to be so susceptible to advertising.... I've seen 'em go buy the damndest things just to try to impress someone, not seeming to realize they have just offered several years into the future to pay for it. There is strong financial incentive to string 'em out in debt, and no incentive to wisen them up to not spend money they do not have.

    I am fuming a bit here over a neighbor kid, who I know has few resources, carrying on over an expensive new car he just agreed to make payments on.... and I thought he would have been far better off had he bought something like I bought... an old diesel van... as a van would have given him a place to put his tools, and the option of not relying on someone else who has "the company truck" to provide him employment. He paid over 10X the amount I paid for the van, and what he has is almost useless for doing anything useful. Trying to impress the women with a "hot ride" is about the last thing this guy needs to be doing. Women see that car, and expect to go to really expensive restaurants. He's just being played sucker. But somehow, the "system" has successfully ingrained this paradigm into him. I see the finance company repossessing his ride when the economy burps again.

    And he will never get out of his parent's house.

    He even has his girlfriend living there... in his parent's house ... raising his son... while he continues to go out ... playing the field ... while his girlfriend rakes in government cheques.

    • (Score: 2) by lentilla on Friday June 22 2018, @09:30AM (1 child)

      by lentilla (1770) on Friday June 22 2018, @09:30AM (#696652)

      He paid over 10X the amount I paid for the van, and what he has is almost useless for doing anything useful.

      Well; to be blunt; he probably gets at least ten times the action you get.

      It rather boils down to his priorities. Better to live a day as a tiger than hundred years as a sheep?

      while he continues to go out ... playing the field ... while his girlfriend rakes in government cheques

      Yeah well, that's not cool. But still, he seems to have identified his priorities. He can always have his sweet ride repossessed and eke out a meagre existence in his parents' basement later - but he's only young once.

      • (Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Friday June 22 2018, @04:51PM

        by i286NiNJA (2768) on Friday June 22 2018, @04:51PM (#696824)

        Well; to be blunt; he probably gets at least ten times the action you get.

        That's how it works in car commercials and staged youtube videos. Oh and in testimony from guys with expensive cars.
        Nobody gets laid for their stupid car in america.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @12:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @12:41PM (#696707)

      Spoken like a true incel! Your old diesel van (that is a sensible vehicle allowing you to do things, as you mentioned, such as transporting tools you need) proves that you hate women!

      Death to incels! Police be upon them!

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by bobthecimmerian on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:45PM

      by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:45PM (#697623)

      Buying used cars is actually a luxury. If my 8 year old car needs a $5,000 repair, I can either take the money out of savings (I have it... barely) or junk it and buy a five year old car to replace it. If the neighbor kid buys a used car and it suddenly needs a $3,000 repair, most likely he can neither afford the repair or a replacement. If he has payments on it, he's doubly screwed because he has no vehicle and a payment. If the same lower income person buys a new car, the payments are higher but for at least three years all maintenance problems more complex than oil changes and maybe one set of brakes and tires are the dealer's cost and not the buyer's.

      On top of that, there are safety concerns. As much as we enviro-hippies hate it, mass is a huge factor in collisions. If I roll over a large pickup truck, I'm most likely dead and so are the other occupants. But if we don't roll over, we're going to walk away without a scratch from collisions that will massacre the occupants of a smaller vehicle. Within the same weight class, differences in crash engineering are also enormous. There are a whole range of crashes that would cause serious damage to the occupants of a 2006 Chrysler minivan that will only shake up the occupants of a 2018 Chrysler minivan. So larger vehicle size and newer, safer crash protection are two valid reasons to buy more expensive vehicles. I have my family of six in a brand new Chrysler van, and I'd put us all in a Chevy Suburban or Ford Expedition if I could afford the difference.

      But otherwise yes, your point stands. No reason to buy a Mustang when a Focus will do. No reason to buy a Tundra pickup if you can get the job done in a smaller Tacoma. And if you do have $10,000 set aside, rather than making a down payment on a new X, spend $5,000 on a used X and save the $5,000 for repairs - plus all of the money you save month to month without payments. If I didn't have kids, I would be in a used Civic, Focus, Corolla, etc... I could never live with myself if I lost a kid in a car crash, but if I die in a crash I won't be around to miss me.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday June 22 2018, @12:23PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Friday June 22 2018, @12:23PM (#696697) Journal

    Here where I live, in central California, most people cannot even invest in buying their own homes. That was something just about everyone could do in the '50s and '60s.

    Well, I can't speak for central California, but the stats overall say home ownership rate [wikipedia.org] has been relatively constant since the 1960s and actually trended UP until the early 2000s (where it was artificially high, obviously, resulting in the huge housing crash because people actually couldn't afford homes but were given mortgages anyway).

    Basically, it's been between 60 and 70% since the 1950s. Recently, due to the trend of younger people marrying later (which is often the impetus for buying homes), it's been trending back down toward mid-1960s levels. What does seem to be true is that more Americans carry less equity in the houses they own these days on average, which is a concerning trend -- but not surprising considering the tendency toward consumer debt in recent decades.