SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
New data show much faster growth in wages and incomes.
Wages and salary figures have been going up faster than previously estimated, with the year-over-year increase revised from 3.6% to 5.5%. Even after adjusting for inflation, that is 4.1%.
Overall personal income is up, transfer receipts (welfare) are down, and savings is up. Americans are relying less on the government and saving more of what they earn. Personal savings is 8.1%, not the 6.1% that had been estimated. Consumer spending is up despite the increase in savings. The fact that spending isn't accompanied by a household debt increase makes the economic expansion more durable.
The numbers for the first quarter of 2019 look particularly good for reducing income inequality. Corporate profits declined while wages grew at an annualized rate of 10.1%.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @09:15AM (33 children)
While some average number might have gone up, how was the plunder divvied? Everybody certainly didn't take equal cut...
The truth of course is the fat cats got even fatter and slim ones disappeared from sight for good. As always in capitalism.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 02 2019, @10:35AM (31 children)
Hate to burst your bubble but the lowest quarter income-wise have been seeing the lion's share of the recent income gains.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:44AM (15 children)
Excuse me for not trusing Buzzard Statistics. Got a citation?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 02 2019, @10:53AM (14 children)
Again? Do I need to put it in my sig or something? Fine, here [epi.org].
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @11:15AM (9 children)
Wage != income. Those stats you linked exclude medium and large business owners. Basically, they're saying the middle and upper class are making less money while the lower class are doing better. But they say nothing about the 1% who actually owns everything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @11:55AM (1 child)
From TFA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:25AM
Corporate profits are down because they are doing stock buy-backs at record rates. Stock buybacks increase their stock value, P/E ratio, and other figures at the expense of employee stock option plans.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 02 2019, @11:58AM (4 children)
Are you fucking stupid?
Yes, I guess you are. Those stats include everyone except the top five percent of wage earners. Wage earners means employees. Owners of pretty much all publicly traded companies and most privately owned companies do not draw a wage unless they are also performing a job.
Ahhh, you're that flavor of moron. Roger. We're done here. You're too hopeless to waste keystrokes on.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 02 2019, @09:16PM (2 children)
The media has done much to build and foster a narrative in which the right and the left just can't get along. They make strawmen of one side, and invite the other side to beat them up and burn them down. When you join in the name calling, you play into this.
I'm not crazy about another fake left corporate Democrat national government. But damn, the right has dived deep into the trolling. Neo-Confederates and Neo-Nazis are "very fine people", WTF? Do we want a WWII and American Civil War rematch? It's pretty clear that the gun nuts feel they'd have the advantage in a shooting match. The media doesn't have to construct strawmen for the right These days, when the right does have a valid point, it is most righteously viewed with skepticism, suspicion and distrust. They've lied outrageously so often now, it should be a reflex to not believe anything they say.
But I also know that a lot of poor people are idiots with money. The US must look real whiny and entitled next to the really impoverished peoples of the rest of the world. However that may be, it doesn't excuse the cheating and robbery that so many of the rich do with impunity-- not paying their employees, looting the pension funds, and cashing in hugely on insider trading deals.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 02 2019, @09:51PM
Question, are you looking to paint the other 99+% of rich folks with that same brush or were you only speaking of the actual criminals?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:10AM
You say "They make strawmen of one side"
Trump did not say that Neo-Confederates and Neo-Nazis are "very fine people".
Listen to enough of his speech for context, and you'll see. It's just a couple sentences more than the typical sound bite. Listen, and you'll see, unless you are only interested in making a strawman.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @11:13PM
As George Orwell noted after fighting a war supporting communists in Spain, the overwhelming majority of socialists don't love the poor, they hate the rich. It is jealousy that they aren't the dictators, not compassion for the downtrodden.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 02 2019, @12:04PM (1 child)
You're also ignoring benefits. Back at you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:29AM
Be sure to record your face when you open your first paycheck. The look on your face will be priceless when you try to figure out why hours worked * hourly wage != check amount.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday August 02 2019, @03:02PM
Thanks for that source. It showed that from the 10th-80th percentile that from 2000-2018 the highest percentage gain was 12% and the midline was around 5%. Meantime between 2000 and 2016 the differences in annual average inflation (source [bls.gov]) showed a 39.53% increase. The 2007-2018 sourcing was even more pathetic. Funny how that span covers both parties.
Meantime as WSJ said, from current data ( https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view [bls.gov] ) and not seasonally adjusted, between January 2017 and May of 2019 CPI-U has increased 6.18% against a backdrop of 10% income growth. Which is good-as-painted.
Nice news is nice. It will be even more interesting to analyze after the next recession begins which should be any quarter now. Far as I can tell a lot of recessions occur immediately after a spike in wage growth. But I could be wrong.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 02 2019, @05:52PM (2 children)
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/economic-policy-institute/ [mediabiasfactcheck.com]
OTOH, I don't know the bias of the mediabiasfactcheck.com site.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 02 2019, @06:41PM (1 child)
Remember when Obama was President and all these economy numbers were FAKE NEWS?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 02 2019, @06:57PM
Unemployment numbers still are. Wage numbers a less so.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @04:01PM (6 children)
Don't let buzztardo fool ya, from the conclusion of his citation
"Rising wage inequality continues to be a defining feature of the American economy. Because of the recent uptick in wages for the 20th through 40th percentiles over the last year on top of steady increases over the last few years at the 10th percentile, wage growth is in the rough shape of a checkmark with stronger growth at the bottom attributed to several consecutive years of state-level minimum wage increases and a growing economy, while the fastest growth at and near the top is a continuation of the trends in growing inequality since the 1970s."
So bottom rung wage earners got some bumps but their pay is still shit, and thise pay bumps barely outpaced higher wage groups. Typical use of stats by our resident dumbass.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 02 2019, @06:01PM (4 children)
Even the title is pulling a fast one with the stats. That claim that the 99% got a bigger raise is not supported by the evidence presented in the OPINION piece. (Since when are we posting opinion pieces to the frontpage?)
This statement says nothing about who received the raises:
How much of those increases went to the 1%?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 02 2019, @06:11PM (3 children)
See, that question there tells me two things.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 02 2019, @06:15PM (2 children)
No, I'm simply pointing out the claim is not supported by the evidence presented.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 02 2019, @07:04PM (1 child)
There's no evidence presented at all. I think they're allergic to hyperlinks, so I'll link it [bea.gov] for everyone. Mind you, you'll need to hit the interactive tables here [bea.gov] and do some digging if you want to see what's really what. They're not fans of Palemoon, by the way. Spoof your useragent if necessary.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:43PM
Now you're browser-printing users? Or did DM say he uses palemoon?
On topic I did check your link and while the % was higher for lowest earners the extra couple of points is literally cents. Like a full whopping quarter. Now a few % points for mid and top level earners is a massive portion of the low wage person's YEARLY take.
Forgot how much of a disingenuous prick you are.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 02 2019, @06:07PM
Yeah, let's not let a little thing like the truth get in the way of our beliefs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 02 2019, @08:38PM (7 children)
Maybe when viewed on a percentage gain scale...
I worked for $3.35 an hour back in 1983-7, today those same jobs pay $8.46 per hour.
When I got my degree in 1988, I started out at $30K per year and my Senior boss made $60K, today those same jobs pay $65K and $125K respectively, so, yeah, the bottom rung is rising faster.
Meanwhile, that house I bought in 1992 for $76K now sells for $225K, and the car I bought for $14K starts around $30K. Lunch that used to cost $3.50 is now $7-12, etc. etc. So, in real terms, inflation has been outpacing wages, for 4 decades now.
Boomers don't notice too much, because their jobs came with 401(k) and similar plans that have been rising with the stock market, slightly faster than inflation. Fresh outs: lucky to get out of mom & dad's basement at any salary.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 02 2019, @09:59PM (5 children)
How else would you like to view it other than percentage-wise? Any other way is going to be chosen strictly because the person doing the choosing is looking to lie without lying. They're full of shit. They know they're full of shit. And they'll consciously use a dollar amount rather than a percentage because they don't want to admit they're full of shit.
Inflation is another matter entirely. Take that up with the Fed. Politicians can only weakly influence the Fed at best.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 03 2019, @03:35AM (4 children)
How about viewing it in terms of disposable income? Income not needed for food, shelter and costs associated with employment.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 03 2019, @04:20AM (3 children)
Go for it if you like. The perceived increases would be even more heavily weighted toward the low end though because of the way math works. How about we just tell the truth instead of trying to make it look any particular way?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 03 2019, @11:23AM (2 children)
Impossible, humans in the data gathering loop from the ground up, it's biases on top of biases with several layers of opinion in the middle.
Honestly, trying to gather unbiased information about anything on a national scale (when the nation has hundreds of millions of data points) is literally impossible.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:22PM (1 child)
Nope. Stats in general and wages in particular are extremely easy to report in an unbiased manner. You just have to tell the truth. Which means you have to be able to admit the truth to yourself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 03 2019, @03:32PM
Not me, not you, hundreds of thousands of representative reporters have to tell this truth.
Glassdoor.com reports that my company pays my position X to 2X depending on experience. I make 2.5X and I know people who make 3X in my position and this is on W2 reporting positions.
Fully 30% of the jobs I have worked under-reported, and in rare cases over-reported income on their federal W2s, and I've worked for a lot of mainstream type of places.
Do you think, for a minute, that the distortion of the truth gets any less as you go up the scale? Do you think, for a minute, that our sitting president's tax returns come close to reflecting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
It is possible to know your own truth, even though many people do not. It is impossible to know even your closest friends' and neighbors' truths - in the world as it is organized today, and that's O.K. - but you're lying to yourself if you think you know the whole story. When you expand the scope of the reporting to millions of people you don't know who live thousands of miles away with several degrees of separation between you and the target source data, you're delusional if you think you've got anything other than statistics based on warped reporting of half truths.
Sometimes the "wisdom of the crowd" works for statistical estimation of truth, but not when there's a consistent bias in it, and that bias has been present since the first person calling himself "tax collector" showed up to take some of what you've got, or else.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:51PM
That was previous decades. Wages were kept down by outsourcing and immigration and low tariffs. Inflation was up partly due to costly regulation.
As the summary says though: "Even after adjusting for inflation, that is 4.1%." (and that is in the article, verbosely)
The really inexplicable thing that that some people want to resist. They don't want America great again. WTF. They might be under the influence of Chinese or Mexican propaganda.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @11:56AM
did you even read the title?