The Census Bureau came out with hard numbers that permit us to evaluate the long term performance of Congress and the leadership class (to be called the Pharisees in the future).
WSJ (9/14/2011 online) "The income of a household considered to be at the statistical middle fell 2.3% to an inflation-adjusted $49,445 in 2010, which is 7.1% below its 1999 peak, the Census Bureau said."
FT (9/14/2011 online): “In 2009, the median full-time male worker aged 25-64 was earning $48,000 – roughly the same as in 1969 in real terms. Meanwhile, in the same 40-year period, the income of the top 2 per cent of working age men has jumped 75 per cent.”
These results are an unmitigated disaster.
The common people in America have lost ground in incomes during a period when the promises of the Pharisees in the Dark City have expanded. For 40 years, the Pharisees urged the public to accept great changes in governmental policies based on theories. The promise was better living standards.
We can evaluate the success or failure of those policies with hard data: they all failed. Failure was bipartisan. The Pharisees in the Dark City and elsewhere got more [75% more!], but the plain people got less.
The 40 year social contract was a fraud to fool the people to accept risks to their lifestyles in exchange. The Pharisees got a banquet, the plain people get to chew cud.
Here's a simple proposal to start to change to a better society: cut the pay and benefits of Congress by 20%. Cut the pay and benefits of Federal employees making over $100,000 by up to 20% [scaled to hit the higher levels with the full cut]. Require similar cuts for all government contractors.
Reason: complete failure to meet objectives.
That's true shared sacrifice. The leaders bear the pain, too.
Word of the Day
"Manqué" - adjective [$10] placed after the noun
Manqué means that might have been, but is not, unfulfilled (a comic actor manqué).
Sentence: "Better lives from productivity increases" was a key part of a social contract manqué - the Pharisees are now in default. Cut their pay.
Showing posts with label personal income. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal income. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Square Deal ... Not!
Yesterday I posed the question of whether the classic liberal political economic theory was working as it existed in the US since the 1960s. Did it produce the implied increases in happiness-utility-wealth for the common man and woman? In colloquial speech, was it a Square Deal for them ? Or not? Did the hegemonic class and their governmental bureaucratic allies live up to their express and / or implied promises?
Easily available data exist to test that question. The US Census Bureau keeps and has kept high quality statistical data about the US for decades; they've even extended those data series back to the beginning of the nation and before. This data is and was published in the Statistical Abstracts (published annually since 1878) and the companion volume Historical Statistics of the United States published in 1975 (I have a copy).
I learned about this data series at a course taken as a freshman at Harvard in 1972 from the late Sen. (then Prof.) Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He used his mind in serving the nation, and was a tough professor. You had to do the work and read the material. I did and it sunk in. [To brag a bit, the course was a mixed undergraduate-graduate level course - I did not take (many) gut courses; I wanted my money's worth.] Now, almost 40 years later, I can draw on that learning to write this blog post.
All that data is now available online. With a few clicks , I downloaded a spreadsheet: "Table 698. Median Income of Families by Type of Family in Current and Constant (2008) Dollars". To do a fair longitudinal evaluation, one must keep the sample type as fixed as possible to limit systematic drift. American demographics has changed over time. Let's study the canonical, "Ozzie and Harriet" family - the same as the "Leave It to Beaver" family: a married couple family with the husband working and the wife not in the labor force. Oh, of course she works hard taking care of the household, likely helping out in a family business, or doing many other tasks for no money compensation. Many baby boomers remember that type of family.
Were they treated to a Square Deal?
The numbers. In 1969, a median married couple family with wife not in the labor force made $46,101 in constant 2008 dollars. In 2008, that family made $48,502. The total increase over that huge 38 year span was a mere $2,401, a 5.21% gross increase over 39 years! Per annum, that is a minuscule 0.130% per year. That is NOT a Square Deal.
The numbers also show that for the two decades prior to 1969 (i., e., from 1949 to 1969), the median income for that family grew from $24,173 to $46,101, a gain of $21,928 which was 90.7% increase over the base year of 1949, or growth of 3.28% per annum. That WAS a Square Deal.
Something changed in the 1960s. The political-economic bargain between the common people and their leaders was changed ... unilaterally and possibly secretly and certainly unintended by the common man and woman. The common man and woman certainly did not bargain for that change.
Was there a secret coup? Or some insidious decaying process? Or something else going on?
Your writer will post more on this later.
Word of the Day
"Gravel" - verb usage [$10] a T. S. Eliot word
Gravel means (transitive verb) 1. to lay or strew with gravel; 2. perplex, puzzle, nonplus (from an obsolete sense of 'run (a ship) aground').
Sentence: Stagnant or declining living standards for decades gravel the common man and woman; the reality is and has been so far from the promises of the political leaders. What's going on?
Easily available data exist to test that question. The US Census Bureau keeps and has kept high quality statistical data about the US for decades; they've even extended those data series back to the beginning of the nation and before. This data is and was published in the Statistical Abstracts (published annually since 1878) and the companion volume Historical Statistics of the United States published in 1975 (I have a copy).
I learned about this data series at a course taken as a freshman at Harvard in 1972 from the late Sen. (then Prof.) Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He used his mind in serving the nation, and was a tough professor. You had to do the work and read the material. I did and it sunk in. [To brag a bit, the course was a mixed undergraduate-graduate level course - I did not take (many) gut courses; I wanted my money's worth.] Now, almost 40 years later, I can draw on that learning to write this blog post.
All that data is now available online. With a few clicks , I downloaded a spreadsheet: "Table 698. Median Income of Families by Type of Family in Current and Constant (2008) Dollars". To do a fair longitudinal evaluation, one must keep the sample type as fixed as possible to limit systematic drift. American demographics has changed over time. Let's study the canonical, "Ozzie and Harriet" family - the same as the "Leave It to Beaver" family: a married couple family with the husband working and the wife not in the labor force. Oh, of course she works hard taking care of the household, likely helping out in a family business, or doing many other tasks for no money compensation. Many baby boomers remember that type of family.
Were they treated to a Square Deal?
The numbers. In 1969, a median married couple family with wife not in the labor force made $46,101 in constant 2008 dollars. In 2008, that family made $48,502. The total increase over that huge 38 year span was a mere $2,401, a 5.21% gross increase over 39 years! Per annum, that is a minuscule 0.130% per year. That is NOT a Square Deal.
The numbers also show that for the two decades prior to 1969 (i., e., from 1949 to 1969), the median income for that family grew from $24,173 to $46,101, a gain of $21,928 which was 90.7% increase over the base year of 1949, or growth of 3.28% per annum. That WAS a Square Deal.
Something changed in the 1960s. The political-economic bargain between the common people and their leaders was changed ... unilaterally and possibly secretly and certainly unintended by the common man and woman. The common man and woman certainly did not bargain for that change.
Was there a secret coup? Or some insidious decaying process? Or something else going on?
Your writer will post more on this later.
Word of the Day
"Gravel" - verb usage [$10] a T. S. Eliot word
Gravel means (transitive verb) 1. to lay or strew with gravel; 2. perplex, puzzle, nonplus (from an obsolete sense of 'run (a ship) aground').
Sentence: Stagnant or declining living standards for decades gravel the common man and woman; the reality is and has been so far from the promises of the political leaders. What's going on?
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