The U.S. Recovery Is Historically Good. Why Does It Feel Terrible? – The Atlantic
The U.S. economy’s power-law features, in which averages disguise massive inequalities in outcomes, go a long way in explaining how Obama can tell a story about the economy vastly different from the ones that are propelling some presidential candidates. A prime example is the pattern of income growth. Between 2009 and 2013, most measures of real personal income showed slow but steady improvement. Average hourly earnings for private sector workers grew about 7 percent. But what about the distribution? The top 1 percent saw its disposable income grow by 11 percent. Everybody else got close to nothing. For the bottom 99 percent, income actually declined through the first five years of the recovery. “So far all of the gains of the recovery have gone to the top 1 percent,” the economist Justin Wolfers wrote.
From: The U.S. Recovery Is Historically Good. Why Does It Feel Terrible? – The Atlantic
Maybe the problem is Obama? Not a single year of 3% growth.
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2016/02/01/barack_obamas_sad_record_on_economic_growth_101987.htmlReport
That may be the dumbest, most obviously cherry-picked economic statistic I’ve heard all year.Report
Don:
So you prefer inequality of income growth vs GDP as a “real” statistic? Next you will tell me Obama’s stimulus was a rousing success.Report
I’m not endorsing the claim that it’s Obama’s fault—although the tax hikes and new regulations probably haven’t helped—but coming out of a recession this deep without a single year of 3% growth rate really is pretty sad. Normally after a recession there’s a period of faster-than-normal catch-up growth, and GDP returns to the pre-recession trend line, with the recession doing no permanent damage to the economy. This even happened after the Great Depression. We lost 4-5 years of GDP growth, and It’s looking increasingly likely that we will not get it back.Report
When I compare that to the experience of our developed world peers 3% doesn’t look particularly shabby.Report
It wouldn’t be so bad if we actually had 3% growth.Report
The point is we have had more than anyone else did and a hell of a lot more than those who moved towards the GOP’s preferred austerity policies.Report
President Obama wanted to make the USA more like Europe, but you know those obstructionist Republicans in Congress…Report
Yeah when I think of the laws they blocked: paying our bills on time, sorting out the ACA, we really dodged a bullet there.Report
One of the things that was hammered into me over and over and over and over and over again:
It’s not about an absolute standard. It’s about a relative standard. Moreover, it’s not about a measurable relative standard, it’s about a qualitative relative standard.
This is why increasing inequality is bad even if the people at the bottom are measurably better than they were ten years prior.
Frans de Waal had a pretty interesting Ted Talk about this.
https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCgReport
Jaybird!
You never cease to surprise me!Report
While in Qatar, I had an epiphany about the whole absolute vs. relative thing. While it might be technically true that it’s better for everybody if the absolute baseline is increased dramatically for the worst off, if the *PERCEPTION* is that that doesn’t matter because of the *PERCEPTION* of the relative difference between the (still worst off) and the best off has increased (the best off get jetpacks or something), the society as a society will have a lot less trust/collaboration.
And I’m beginning to suspect that it’s more important to have high trust/collaboration than higher baselines for the worst off.Report
Always interesting that the moment minimum wage raises are broached, the groups crowing about absolute and relative standards are reversed.Report
I’m trying to train myself to recognize that whenever two groups switch places like that, something else is going on.
I need to look for the something else that is going on.Report
Exactly.Report
We’ve talked about this before. Set aside for the moment whether “we” are doing better, the same or worse.
Why is the mood so anxious, why is there so little confidence that the future will be prosperous?Report
Chip:
Don’t you know the anxiety is only caused by republican fear mongering. Everything else is great, just ignore the bad economy, lots of illegals, a record federal debt, Islamic terrorism etc. The future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.Report