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Under Biden, U.S. economic growth becomes the ‘envy of the world’ (www.msnbc.com)
submitted 6 months ago by mozz@mbin.grits.dev to c/usnews@beehaw.org
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[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 29 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Too bad prices are up 20% on average since 2020, and aren't coming back down. That the 2023-2024 inflation rate is only 3% doesn't matter when wages never caught up with the giant price jumps from the pandemic.

People are still hurting.

https://www.bankrate.com/banking/federal-reserve/latest-inflation-statistics/

Prices have risen 20.8% since the pandemic-induced recession began in February 2020, with just 6% of the nearly 400 items the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks cheaper today.

That’s well above the historic average for a four-year period. For comparison, inflation rose 18.9 percent in the 2010s, 28.4 percent in the 2000s and 32.4 percent in the 1990s.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

wages never caught up with the giant price jumps from the pandemic

I’m gonna have to go ahead and sorta disagree with you there

I was gonna link you to wage numbers or find something in my post, but it’s actually right there in your link, in the quote from Mark Hamrick. “ Will consumers suddenly feel relieved from the burden of elevated prices? No. But they are supported by a still robust job market that supports employment and wage gains rising above the recent pace of inflation.”

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

They're catching up with the recent pace, which is back down (i.e. 3.3%), not the post-2020 pace. It still hasn't caught up.

As you quoted:

Will consumers suddenly feel relieved from the burden of elevated prices? No.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Hm - I interpreted "recent" as one way, but yeah, that's fair, you could interpret "recent" as him meaning the last year or something. Here's a summary, then, of how wages at the bottom end have kept pace with inflation over the last few years. "Real wages of low-wage workers grew 12.1% between 2019 and 2023." Cumulative inflation over that time span has been about 18% (which is massive), but low-end wages in current dollars also grew by 35% cumulatively in that time, well outpacing inflation.

What numbers are you looking at that say low income wages haven't kept pace with inflation? Like what kind of cumulative current-dollar wages, and what cumulative inflation, are you claiming? If my stuff is propaganda numbers, then what are the real numbers?

Inflation-adjusted wages have ticked very slightly down at the median (like a few percent), gone down a bit at the top end, and gone up significantly both at the bottom end and in the average. It's a complex topic and you can find a variety of numbers both on the income and inflation sides, but they generally all paint that same story (which is, itself, complex enough that you can paint a bunch of different narratives from it, by putting up the numbers for average vs. median vs. lowest-quartile or etc).

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Not to be rude, but do you even read your own sources?

Wage rates remain insufficient for individuals and families working to make ends meet. Nowhere can a worker at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution earn enough to meet a basic family budget.

It's literally at the top of your article, under "Key Findings", probably because they knew that it's easy to misunderstand statistical data, or to claim it says what you want it to.

So the percentiles you are talking about still cannot keep their heads above water, despite the growth of wages in many of their jobs, and the other percentiles haven't seen that level of wage growth, or have even lost ground to inflation, but you're over here going, "I've got great news for you, you're actually not in a bad financial position, stop taking your actual lived experiences over my big numbers!"

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

See above

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So, no actual answer then. Got it.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I mean, sure. 🙂 I was trying to consolidate comments into a single stream of conversation since it's already sort of turning into a bickering sprawl, but if you'd like to reply to it here instead of there, then I'm fine with that too:

Yes, lower income people in this country are still fucked. If anything I was saying made it sound like I thought they were not, that was not the intent. My point was that Biden has been helping them get out of it, to a certain degree, in a way that's actually very unusual for an American president (they generally don't give a shit about the working class). And that happened even during a historic level of economic challenge to tackle his way out of. And therefore that attacking him by pretending that the opposite is happening is erroneous at best and openly dishonest at worst.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I don't think anyone here is claiming Biden is attempting to hurt the economy? I certainly haven't seen that.

But he is also not some kind of economic saviour, and most of the changes to the economy are not under his control anyways.

But you're the one who is trying to claim 1) the economy is good, 2) Biden is to thank.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Dude if you have a disagreement with the article, let's have it. You tried to disagree with it in economic terms and it seems to me like you got tripped up on basic understanding of inflation-adjusted dollars versus non-inflation-adjusted dollars, which is why you're recasting the whole thing in emotional terms like "not some kind of economic saviour," but this new framing doesn't leave a lot to actually discuss. It just takes it into the realm of bickering and fact free opinion judgements.

The majority of people in the country believe that Trump is better on the economy than Biden, even though Trump is a fuckin trade war starting PPP fraud factory closing disaster. The idea that Biden is hurting the economy is not just un-heard-of, it is a majority view, which makes worthwhile a factual discussion of whether or not it is true.

The last article I posted before this morning that dealt with Biden in any capacity was almost a month ago. The thing about me posting article after article you are literally just making up. Comments, I post a lot of.

The article is a little bit explicitly "rah-rah Biden," I'll grant you that. On the other hand, if it's true, then that's legit, and I haven't really seen anything to illustrate that it might not be true other than a pretty large amount of obfuscation in the comments arguing other points that have more convenient answers (like "are low income workers doing okay yet" which they are not).

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

My disagreement with the post's article is that it is conflating the stock market with the economy, and the financial news sector is pushing this narrative very hard, or even saying it openly.

My issues with the article you linked about wages, in the comments, is that you're omissively citing bits and pieces to different people in order to support the idea that the economy is doing well, as the post article claims, when the post article is really about the stock market, not wages or living standards.

If the wage growth at the bottom 10th percentile doesn't mean they're not fucked, why would you even cite it?

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Stock market

Who the fuck said anything about the stock market

The article talks about "growth" which is presumably GDP, which is a bullshit metric absolutely, but the overall context is:

The growth rate is high, the unemployment rate is at historic lows, household wealth is surging, and wages are rising faster than costs, especially for the working class. There are many ways to define a good economy. America is in tremendous shape according to just about any of them.

The stock market is based on total crap and can swing up or down by like tens of percents on a whim for literally no reason at all. The only reason stock market even got mentioned tangentially was because Trump said something about the stock market, and they mentioned that at the end of the article.

IDK why I've spent so much time on this. Honestly man it seems like you're literally just saying anything, casting about for some thing you can poo poo or disagree with that has nothing to do with what I or the article are saying.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

The bottom 10th percentile covers people making less than $22,880, according to BLS.

That firmly excludes the ~~median~~ mode of American households, by wages. The vast majority of Americans were not helped by that number. Is it good that it happened? Yeah, absolutely. It wasn't Biden though. And it isn't most Americans. And it isn't the economy as a whole.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Yeah, I definitely don't know why I've spent so much time on this 🥲

This is like trying to explain to a drunk person why they can't drive home

[–] cybersin@lemm.ee 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Thanks Obama

[–] cybersin@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

[–] MasterNerd@lemm.ee 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah if only the working class were seeing any of that growth

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Boy do I have some good news for you

The nation’s unemployment rate has sat below 4 percent for more than two years now, the longest such streak since the 1960s. With labor markets persistently tight, low-income workers have finally secured some leverage over their employers, and wage inequality has fallen as a result.

[–] Nomecks@lemmy.ca 12 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Nice! How have wages at these new jobs been stacking up with inflation?

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Don't be deceived. This person is misrepresenting statistics.

Here's the link they provided me about their claims about the low-end wage growth:

https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/

This is where they're getting their 35% claims from.

And here's what it says under Key Findings:

Wage rates remain insufficient for individuals and families working to make ends meet. Nowhere can a worker at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution earn enough to meet a basic family budget.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah that's me, Mr. Deceptive, over here explaining what the cumulative wage growth is, and the cumulative inflation, so that people can compare the two and see which one is higher

I actually originally cited the source which simply said that inflation-adjusted wages had grown by 12%, incorporating both into a single number, but that led to a certain amount of confusion, so I separated it out into the two relevant numbers

You know, like a terribly deceptive person would do

(And yes, the poorest 10% of this country is still fucked and needs quite a lot of help. My point was not that they're doing okay now, it was that they have seen substantial gains relative to where they were, which is a notable thing, and that we should keep doing the things that got them going in the right direction for once in God knows how long.)

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

So let me ask, if the actual people are "still fucked", why post articles claiming that our economy is the "envy of the world"?

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I feel like we've been over this at this point

  1. There are quite a lot of countries where the poorest 10% are fucked. The US isn't unique in that respect
  2. A lot of countries are struggling to hold their heads above water at all, after the Covid apocalypse; the fact that by almost any metric you want to choose, the US is actually gaining right now puts it in an enviable position given what happened
  3. The fact that the average worker, and the poorest 10% worker, are both making gains of significant size when usually they are the first ones to get fucked even harder when times are tough, is notable, and "we haven't fixed things for them yet or even close to it" doesn't negate that

Pick any or all

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Wait, are "times tough", or are we in a "great" position, economically? I can't keep up.

But in all seriousness, this all boils down to a simple truth:

Low and middle-class workers today are in far worse positions than our parents' generation(s).

We can't afford homes. We can't afford childcare. We can't afford healthcare. Many of us can't even afford food consistently.

That is where we are at, bottom-line.

Arguing about percentage gains among certain groups belies the fact that this is a shitty economic system, that funnels money upwards.

Do we sometimes claw back a few steps? Sure. But praising the 2 steps forward, while ignoring the previous 10 steps back, just comes across as caping for it.

One particularly depressing graph is home ownership among Millennials. As of 2019, that number sits at 43.3%. But in the year 2000, that number was 20%. The oldest millennials were born in 1981, which means they were 19 years old in 2000.

So at minimum, HALF of the Millennials who own homes now, were rich kids who had their homes bought for them as highschool grads. And that was just the ones literally born in 1981-82. How many of the new millennial home owners are just rich kids who were younger millennials?

This economy is fucked.

I'm sure boiling frogs appreciate when you reduce the heat by a couple degrees, but it doesn't mean they're in a good position.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Dude you're putting up a spirited drive towards this conclusion you are trying to bolster. Sure. One more message maybe.

I don't actually disagree with anything you just said. There are two ways to look at that bleak reality.

  1. One way to look at it is, hey, let's look at which direction things have been moving recently, and try to do more of the things that produce gains and less of the things that produce losses, because it's pretty fuckin urgent to fix all that.
  2. The other way it to move the goalposts allllllll the way from "wages never caught up with the giant price jumps from the pandemic" to implicitly blaming Biden for everything that's happened throughout generations of neoliberal betrayal of the American dream, as a way of disagreeing with an article which is accurately describing some notable successes for the people most in need of help right now including wages catching up and exceeding the giant price jumps from the pandemic

I'm not into the idea of indefinitely disagreeing with every new location you wanna move the goalposts to. I will agree with you about how fucked things are on a generational time-scale, and the urgency of fixing it.

Which is why I like identifying honestly when and why things are moving in the right direction

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

implicitly blaming Biden for everything that’s happened throughout generations of neoliberal betrayal of the American dream

No dude, I have literally blamed Biden for nothing. He has no blame, but also no credit, because he doesn't control the economy.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

New goalposts I do not have time for but fortunately there are a couple of articles which go into why this is wrong pretty comprehensively.

Edit: TL;DR in addition to normal interest-rate stuff and etc, he raised corporate tax by around a trillion dollars which he then sank into among other things domestic manufacturing and infrastructure, and he staffed the NLRB with actual labor people which enabled them to support a lot of these union fights which have been winning gains recently

I keep saying I don’t have time and then you keep suckering me into swinging at wherever the new goalposts are. That’s really it though

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 7 points 6 months ago

Exceeding it

It actually makes it a lot more remarkable - short summary is that wages at the bottom end have gone up by like 35% un adjusted, with some but not all of that gain being eaten up by inflation. Wages at the middle and the top have kept pace with inflation or fallen slightly relative to it.

Basically, wages have gone up hugely (especially at the bottom which I suspect is invisible to a lot of the Lemmy-reading and news-article-writing class since they’re in relatively okay tech savvy types of jobs), which was Biden’s doing, even in the face of huge inflation which wasn’t Biden’s doing. If it wasn’t for having to dig out from COVID we’d be in a historic economic boom right now.

(The Vox article I linked goes into some additional detail which I hadn’t been aware of about the inflation piece - TL;DR is that after Covid, Biden had to accept either inflation or unemployment, and he chose inflation where most of the neoliberal garbage that is our political class would have chosen unemployment.)

[–] nxdefiant@startrek.website 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

It's one of those cruel ironic twists. Wages actually have increased, but inflation has far outpaced them.

It's only barely begun to level back out. The real question is if the wages will stay high once inflation (and greedflation) calms the fuck down.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Don't be deceived. This person is misrepresenting statistics.

Here's the link they provided me about their claims about the low-end wage growth:

https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/

This is where they're getting their 35% claims from.

And here's what it says under Key Findings:

Wage rates remain insufficient for individuals and families working to make ends meet. Nowhere can a worker at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution earn enough to meet a basic family budget.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 2 points 6 months ago

Yeah that's me, Mr. Dishonest, over here explaining what the cumulative wage growth is, and the cumulative inflation, so that people can compare the two and see which one is higher

I actually originally cited the source which simply said that inflation-adjusted wages had grown by 12%, incorporating both into a single number, but that led to a certain amount of confusion, so I separated it out into the two relevant numbers

You know, like a terribly dishonest person would do

(And yes, the poorest 10% of this country is still fucked and needs quite a lot of help. My point was not that they're doing okay now, it was that they have seen substantial gains relative to where they were, which is a notable thing, and that we should keep doing the things that got them going in the right direction for once in God knows how long.)

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 3 points 6 months ago

inflation has far outpaced them

This actually isn't fully true -- inflation hasn't outpaced wages at the bottom end, and the only place it's "far" outpaced them is at the top. (The Vox article talks about more details about how and why)

  • Cumulative inflation from 2019 to 2023 is about 18% (which is fuckin massive, mostly due to the 2022 spike)

But then:

  • Wages at the bottom (10th percentile) in that time went up by about 35% in current dollars, well outpacing inflation
  • Median wages basically held steady with inflation, I think they're a couple percent behind it but basically the same as they were just with people unhappier when they look at their grocery bills
  • Wages at the top (90th percentile) actually didn't hold pace with that historic inflation; for those people their constant dollar wages have been falling, yes
[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 15 points 6 months ago

Meanwhile…

[–] DannyMac@lemm.ee 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

We're just waiting on the profits to trickle past the executives and shareholders to get to us. Any day now

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Boy do I have some good news for you

The nation’s unemployment rate has sat below 4 percent for more than two years now, the longest such streak since the 1960s. With labor markets persistently tight, low-income workers have finally secured some leverage over their employers, and wage inequality has fallen as a result.

[–] DannyMac@lemm.ee 7 points 6 months ago

Any day now for me 😭

[–] SinAdjetivos@beehaw.org 5 points 6 months ago

Now look at labor participation rate.

[–] player2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 months ago

It's not that the US economy is better than others, it is just trusted to be the default place for people to invest their excess money which has resulted in most of the US stock market being overvalued compared to the rest of the world.

"U.S. stocks' outperformance on average over the past half-century or so has simply been due to increasing price multiples, not an improvement in business fundamentals. That is, U.S. companies did not generate more profit than international companies; their stocks just got more expensive. [...] Cheap stocks have greater expected returns and expensive stocks have lower expected returns."

https://www.optimizedportfolio.com/international-stocks/

[–] Blackout@kbin.run 4 points 6 months ago

Let's just say I'm glad I'm not it Japan right now. My friend is having a difficult time there, wages have been stagnant for years and nothing seems to be working with fixing the yen. She can't just job hop to get better pay either, it isn't there.