Posted on 05/05/2016 3:16:39 PM PDT by LS
Pundits and prognosticators are in a rare mea culpa moment, acknowledging how badly they misjudged Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and apologizing for being so narrow-minded. But they didn’t need to travel to dozens of campaign events or poll hundreds of Iowans to understand Trump’s appeal. All they had to do was understand one single number: $55,191.
That was median household income, adjusted for inflation, in June 2015, the month Trump declared he was running for the Republican presidential nomination. That number is neither good nor bad on its own, but when you compare it with a second number, the problem becomes clear. In January 2000, median household income was $57,371, which means when Trump declared his candidacy, the buying power of the typical family had fallen 4% during the prior 15 years.
This simple chart, courtesy of Sentier Resarch, shows the problem. This is an index of median household income, in today’s dollars, which accounts for inflation and other factors over time. That allows apples-to-apples comparisons between now and then. The red line represents the income index (left scale), while the gray line shows the unemployment rate (right scale).
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
From the article: “There are now nearly 13 million more U.S. jobs than there were in 2000, for instance, but if median household income is essentially the same, that’s de facto evidence that many jobs pay less than they used to. Housing and financial net worth are indeed at or near new highs, but if the gains are clustered among the wealthy that doesn’t tell you anything about the fortune of the middle or lower classes. Meanwhile, we know income inequality has worsened, meaning the haves have more and the have-nots – well, they flocked to Donald Trump (and his Democratic populist cousin, Bernie Sanders).”
Wow.
In the chart he has the unemployment rate at around 5%. We all know that is baloney. It is much higher than that.
This just shows that our political class has turned the middle class into peasants. This is how they rule.
““There are now nearly 13 million more U.S. jobs than there were in 2000, for instance”
Yeah, but there are 40 million more people living here than in 2000. We were 282 million then, today we are about 322 million. At least 20 million are Mexicans.
Yes, but you and I know that’s the rate they go by. And I’ll be honest: I don’t know many unemployed people, but my next door neighbor was a mortgage banker seven years ago (as was his wife), they both got laid off, and she got put back on (I’m sure at a reduced salary) and he sells cars now.
So, I think there is a lot in that “under-employed” interpretation they have in the article.
They need to provide a chart showing #’s on food stamps, #’s on unemployment & #’s on disability for the full picture.
Politics is always local and the focus is always the economy. Always has been Always will be.
50% of Americans have below average IQs?
That’s especially true among older Americans. So many 50+ year old Americans have been replaced by younger, lower paid employees. Age discrimination is illegal but nearly impossible to prove.
“Think about how stupid the average person is, then consider that half the people are stupider than that.”— George Carlin
“This just shows that our political class has turned the middle class into peasants. This is how they rule.”
It’s a bipartisan effort.
The GOP is the stupid party
The Democrats are the evil party
Sometimes they get together and do something that is both stupid and evil, and they call it bipartisanship.
What year was it that I last had a good steak?
Well, you need to talk to Millennials. They think it’s just the opposite-—that the geezers who should be retired are moving back into the workforce and taking jobs they should be getting. I don’t know that’s the case, but I do think a lot of retired people are re-entering the workforce.
Keep swingin’. You’ll get a hit some year.
I hope one of the first orders of business for Trump will be cleaning up the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The numbers should be transparent so they can be properly analyzed. Today they are merely propaganda numbers for politicians to manipulate. Disgusting.
The article is wrong. What matters is that the GOP has failed to stop the liberal agenda despite winning the House and then the Senate. The economy may be a contributing factor, but to say it’s the only one is agenda-driven way of trying to give hope to the liberals. Come November, they are toast.
A lot of older people are taking what used to be entry level jobs because it’s all they can find, sometimes more than one. They used to have much better higher paying jobs. So I can see where millenials could view it that way.
“Pundits and prognosticators are in a rare mea culpa moment,”
This is why Bloggers don’t get SEO hits from search engines.
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