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Extreme policies lead to extreme outcomes.
Income inequality reached its highest level in more than half a century last year, as a record-long economic expansion continued to disproportionately benefit some of the wealthiest Americans.
A key measure of wealth distribution jumped to 0.485 in 2018, the Census Bureau said Thursday, its highest reading since the so-called Gini index was started in 1967. The gauge, which uses a scale between 0 and 1, stood at 0.482 a year earlier.
Work alone won't solve poverty—unless wages and earnings pick up substantially. It still takes government aid for families with children and others who do not earn enough, despite working 40 plus hours a week.
The most troubling thing about the new report, says William M. Rodgers III, a professor of public policy and chief economist at the Heldrich Center at Rutgers University, is that it "clearly illustrates the inability of the current economic expansion, the longest on record, to lessen inequality."
According to some research, US income inequality might be higher than it was during the Roman Empire, and pre-tax income inequality is as high as it was in the Roaring Twenties.
Income inequality is blamed on cheap labor in China, unfair exchange rates, and jobs outsourcing. Corporations are often blamed for putting profits ahead of workers. But they must to remain competitive. U.S. companies must compete with lower-priced Chinese and Indian companies who pay their workers much less. As a result, many companies have outsourced their high-tech and manufacturing jobs overseas. The United States has lost 20 percent of its factory jobs since 2000. These were traditionally higher-paying union jobs.
Service jobs have increased, but these are much lower paid.
If current policies touted as "decreasing globalism" in the US economy are trying to reduce income inequality, they're failing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Sunday September 29 2019, @01:27PM (4 children)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-consumer-spending-slowed-sharply-in-august-11569587637 [wsj.com]
https://www.thebalance.com/consumer-spending-trends-and-current-statistics-3305916 [thebalance.com]
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DPCERE1Q156NBEA [stlouisfed.org]
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/08/29/gdp-up-2nd-quarter-consumer-spending-rises-us-economy-slows/2150057001/ [usatoday.com]
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In fact, I did:
And so says pretty much everyone else, too:
https://www.google.com/search?q=real+wages+US+1980-2019&client=firefox-b-1-e&gbv=1&sei=ra2QXbHWBYOm_QaU8oXIBw [google.com]
Are you having trouble with the big words?
Huh? Sure, that's true. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I needed to spoon-feed folks. There are services, both direct and value-add that are part of consumer spending too. There is investment and distribution and a variety of other stuff that are also part of the economy that aren't consumer spending too. I expect that people with an ounce of common sense will get my point. Apparently, you have a little problem with stuff that isn't directly stated. Shall I write a pop-up, picture book for you?
The issues of real wages vs. real costs is, well, real. The cost of necessities, as well as those of things/services TMB calls "luxuries" have increased in real terms. Wages, generally, have not. QED.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @02:41PM (2 children)
Ah the antithesis of a khallow post. They look similar except for all those links to evidence
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:24PM
*khollow
(Score: 0, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 29 2019, @10:57PM
Also the part where, y'know, he's actually correct and Hallow's so full of shit he has a permanent, personal cloud of bluebottle groupies...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 29 2019, @09:25PM
Once again, where's the evidence? Or even an argument for that?
I get that there's a lot of consumer spending. I don't get that someone's spending is harmed because someone else earns more. I think we'll find that is patently false.
Still is irrelevant to the assertion that inflation has something to do with income inequality, even if your statement about the "clear documented" phenomena in the first paragraph were true. For example, contrary to your assertions, US wages have more than kept up with the usual CPI inflation. That doesn't properly cover some big problem areas like health care, real estate, education, etc, but it represents a huge slice of the items 'you term as "luxury"'.
Please remember that next time. Because those little details are part of what made your statement on the matter wrong. It's not about businesses "building and selling cheaper stuff". It's also about services and the like which. That part of the economy is a huge part of the reason the US economy has weathered cheap developing world labor so well. One can build cheap widgets cheaper in the developing world, but services haven't been so easy to transfer.