Instead of complaining about the obvious disconnect between metrics and real world, often regional CoL, etc etc (oh and cost of medical care). Here’s a simple solution:
Raise federal minimum wage, it’s been a good decade and a bit since it went up from $5/h, the dollar has only inflated oh about 45% since 2009
And obviously trump is the better solution, crayon eater? Two things can be true at the same time: it sucks for regular people but it sucks less now than in 2019.
your logic is flawed. of course both can be true, they serve the same master of corporations. l am still voting for the lesser of two evils, hillary 2.0, i mean biden.
A majority of Americans say that their own personal finances are doing well, and even when the question is expanded to their whole state, voters say the economy has improved.
So overall the numbers haven’t changed much since 2023 on how people see their own personal finances. Your point that, despite that, they still think the economy is getting worse just reiterates what the article is saying. For some people their finances are bad and they think things are getting worse. For some people their finances are good ant they think things are getting better. But strangely, for some people their finances are good but they still think things are getting worse. Or, to put it another way, some people think they’re in good shape, but the economy is in bad shape, which is a pretty weird disconnect. And the number of people in that last category is not small.
1 is showing the average ( skewed, of course, by the richest ) income, for the time in Trump’s presidency,
vs the time in Biden’s
the other is showing the same 2 graphs, but adjusted for inflation … and it’s significantly worse in Biden’s presidency.
( I hold that the real disinformation is pretending that income-vs-cost-of-living somehow tracks economic policy realtime … there’s a delay, for some effects that delay is years, like Milei’s eradicating of the Ministry of Education “for the economy” is a bullet-in-the-head for future advanced-economy participation, but … this pair of graphs does highlight a significant fact:
you cannot ignore inflation when claiming that the wealth of the average person is better, because wealth is only in relation to costs.
“Milei’s cabinet is smaller than usual, fulfilling his pledge to shrink the number of ministries. There were 18 ministries; now there are nine. The ministries of education; labor, employment, and social security; and social development are all now the ministry of human capital.”
I would call downsizing it to the point of irrelevancy and combining it with 4 other ministries under a new name does constitute eradication.
Being absorbed by another ministry does not by any means implies that it has been ERADICATED. At most it became a secretary or sub secretary, but not gone.
It’s not simply that it was absorbed by another ministry. 5 unrelated ministries were gutted and combined into an ineffective mishmash, incapable of doing any of the duties previously required.
“Several other ministries were downsized and recombined into new entities. The Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security will be pared down into a newly formed Ministry of Human Capital, headed by the former TV producer Sandra Pettovello.”
And, yeah, putting a TV producer in charge of what used to be 5 governmental ministries? Seriously?
Pretending that Biden / Democrats don’t have any power to even attempt to address this in even the most mild way is plain stupid.
And please don’t reply with a “you think Biden has the power unilaterally force them to lower their prices?!”
No, I don’t.
But what I DO think is that power of the bully pulpit of the highest office in the land allows the president to openly target and vilify (righteously I might add) companies and even individual CEOs that are doing things like this and turn the public ire against them in a focused manner.
Additionally, Democrats can do things in a Machiavellian manner that would make life a fucking nightmare for some of these people. Just get the IRS to go after some of these CEOs. Investigate them for this price gouging that we know that they’re doing. Suspend their business licenses.
Have the FDA tell them they’re not authorized to sell milk anymore or some shit I don’t fucking care.
Don’t tell me the Supreme Court’s gonna overturn it because I don’t care. In the meantime that they hadn’t overturned it we get wins and even if the Supreme Court does overturn it it’s more ammunition to point and say “look at what they’re taking away from us! We’re trying to fix things, and these Republicans in office keep undoing what would help make your lives better!”
Instead, they do nothing and say “well we couldn’t do that even if we wanted to because the Republicans would stop us” and then when you get angry and complain they say “oh well what do you want Trump to be in office instead?!”
This fucking handwaving shit has got to stop or Trump is going to fucking win again. Jesus Christ. Fucking forgive medical debt. Fucking forgive student loans. Just do some sweeping shit. I don’t care if everyone’s going to complain about the legality of it. Push the limits of your power. Trump did it and got away with it and it was evil shit like the Muslim travel ban.
AT LEAST ATTEMPT TO DO SOME GOOD WITH THE POWER YOU HAVE TO SHOW US THAT YOU ARE TRYING!
Man, the way they calculated this statistic is so misleading, and counter intuitive to the claim it’s ridiculous.
The only reason for “real wage growth” is shown as outpacing inflation is because they aren’t counting people who lost their job because of COVID as a loss of income, but as someone exiting the job market.
Basically “wages” increased because the majority of people who lost their jobs were low income earners, leaving more white collar jobs to represent wage earnings.
It’s in the article you linked as a source… Did you not read it?
As the figure shows, average real wages rose sharply at the onset of the pandemic, but that’s because the bottom dropped out of the labor market when millions of lower-wage workers lost their jobs. Average real wages then fell sharply in the pandemic recovery as many of those lower-wage workers returned to work, pulling down the average.
The problem with economic studies is that they are usually made by people trying to argue one point or another, it’s not the same as scientific study where proving or disproving your hypothesis is an academic benefit either way.
It makes it easy to quantify, something unlike “wages out pacing inflation”, you just have to redifine some terms, and then something like thousand of lay offs becomes a net positive instead of a bleak reality.
Point taken. Still, though, the commenter I was replying to seemed to be suggesting stagnant wages and minimum wage both need attention. Despite the fact that the post-Covid wage gain boost seems to be an artifact of a labor market distortion, the rest of my sources show very real and very public pushes for measures that could meaningfully address the stagnation if they were passed into law. If effort is what people are clamoring for, there seems to be no shortage of it. It just seems to me that folks don’t like to engage with the actual political realities of our situation, whereby we still need a broad consensus to achieve any legislative movement, and that broad consensus is impossible as long as Republicans share power at the Congressional level. They seem to be blaming Democrats for the fact that Republicans exist and are intransigent.
rest of my sources show very real and very public pushes for measures that could meaningfully address the stagnation if they were passed into law. If effort is what people are clamoring for, there seems to be no shortage of it.
I think that’s a fairly subjective interpretation. Is a bill being written and endorsed by part of the party an indication of “real effort”?
I think the problem a lot of people hold, myself included, is that the democratic party lacks the leadership that turns “real effort” into law.
When republican leadership lays out their political agenda their whips make sure that their members in the Senate and the House (to a lesser extent post Jan 6) toe the line. If you don’t make the party’s position a priority then you lose your committee memberships, or are passed over for funding.
I think the problem is that the DNC leadership’s only qualifier is seniority, so the “progressive” party is being helmed by ancient millionaires who were only really progressive by comparison during the regan era.
They seem to be blaming Democrats for the fact that Republicans exist and are intransigent.
I can see your point, but this also ignores the fact that a lot of powerful Democrats are basically center right on the political compass and have been effectively captured by corporate interests, and have been for decades.
You could argue that their commitment to third way politics has caused the current political situation where conservatives feel confident enough to be this intransigent in the first place. I personally feel that democratic leadership would rather have someone like Trump in the Whitehouse than someone like Bernie Sanders.
I think that’s a fairly subjective interpretation. Is a bill being written and endorsed by part of the party an indication of “real effort”?
I mean, if you’re a Congressional representative in a non-leadership position and you can’t get past the filibuster, I’d argue drafting a bill to address a problem is just about the best you can do. So yes, I’d argue that’s doing a very good job. I don’t hold it against the bill drafter that they have to deal with institutional inertia and a multi-party, bicameral federal bureaucracy.
I think the problem is that the DNC leadership’s only qualifier is seniority, so the “progressive” party is being helmed by ancient millionaires who were only really progressive by comparison during the regan era.
I don’t disagree, that’s a serious problem. It’s a bit more complicated than seniority alone, but seniority is still the anchor. But still, the rules are determined by majority vote in conference, and so unless I’m missing something that means a majority of the Democrats in the conference settle on the committee assignment rules each session. That certainly bakes in a significant amount of inertia because the folks already in a position of power retain that power through fluctuations in voter sentiment, but that also means that it would only take a simple majority to completely change those rules. The Senate Caucus leader chooses the Rules Committee which can recommend changes. The House Caucus rules can be modified only by the Speaker, but the Speaker is elected by the full Caucus, so for all intents and purposes a simple majority in either the Senate or the House could change the conference/caucus rules if they chose to. There isn’t currently a simple majority in either house that intends to change that rule structure, and so the problem doesn’t appear to be that the party is helmed by certain individuals, it’s that the party as a whole doesn’t intend to change the way they choose their leaders.
I can see your point, but this also ignores the fact that a lot of powerful Democrats are basically center right on the political compass and have been effectively captured by corporate interests, and have been for decades.
I can see why you think that, and at some times I think that as well, but rather than ascribe malevolent intentions to them I prefer to figure out how they got to Congress in the first place. In that regard, the true question is, do those powerful Democrats represent the center of gravity of the voting population that put them there? Or, more simply, is the average Democratic voter centrist or progressive? If the average Democratic voter is centrist, then we could argue that these leaders are simply representing the will of their constituents. If the average Democratic voter is progressive, then we could argue there’s some kind of institutional block to that will being reflected in the actions of the Party, which could be reflected in those rules or their inability to change them.
The most recent data I can find is from 2021, and it essentially says that even if we combine “outsider left” with “progressive left”, that bloc still only represents 28% of the voting bloc that is Dem/Lean Dem. “Democratic mainstays” and “establishment liberals” represent 51% of the Dem/Lean Dem bloc. Conservatives even make up 6% of that overall bloc, so in this context I’d group them together. If we grant that “stressed sideliners” might also fall into the more left-leaning category, we come to an explanatory break point of 57% that fall from center left to center right, and 42% that fall from left to far left. So in that respect the center of gravity of the party very much is on the moderate end, which would explain the leadership and rule dynamics described above. In short, there are more voters who agree with the moderate wing of the party than who disagree with it.
From the perspective of Lemmy, which leans overwhelmingly left, I can see how that might seem like an institutional or corrupting block of your ideals and intentions, but if we step back from the distorted view we have inside this particular platform, the fact remains that centrist Dems have power because the party itself is centrist. I get how that can feel deeply disappointing, and I get how that 42% might feel marginalized and sidelined, but at the end of the day it’s a majority-rules kind of situation, and so until that balance tips in favor of the left wing I don’t see that process meaningfully changing. Heck, it could even be argued that if those centrist Dems dramatically altered the rules in favor of a distributive model of power, and if that resulted in a disproportionate increase in the power of the left wing, their voters might be rightly pissed that the party is no longer representing their interests. I can’t imagine the next election going very well for them, because those centrists could very easily shift to the right, because they’re kinda right to begin with.
The problem, it seems, is with voters, not with the party. Which brings me to your final point:
You could argue that their commitment to third way politics has caused the current political situation where conservatives feel confident enough to be this intransigent in the first place. I personally feel that democratic leadership would rather have someone like Trump in the Whitehouse than someone like Bernie Sanders.
I agree completely. Third way neoliberalism is largely to blame for the state of our unequal and top-heavy economy, and it’s deeply imbedded because the conservative coalitions in both parties (in the 80s and 90s) found common ground in greasing the wheels for that economic transition to occur. The stress that system is putting our country under is starting to open up some very large cracks in American society as a whole.
But at the end of the day, the solution to that seems to be to elect more progressive candidates to office so the power balance tips in your favor. Joe Manchin would have no real power if there were about 2-3 more progressive Senators, at which point you could change the committee assignment rules to be more distributive. Same could be said about the centrist House members, but I’m sure the math is a bit steeper just because the House caucus is bigger. But since Senators are elected statewide, they kinda hew centrist by definition because they have to appeal to the whole electorate, so that might be a tall order. The House is where that sentiment would be more readily affected, but we’re captured by a conservative judiciary that’s decided gerrymandering is totally peachy. That’s not helped by the fact that leftists are clustering geographically, which dilutes their voting power even in situations where gerrymandering isn’t the main problem. They’re quite literally moving away from political races they might be able to win.
I mean, if you’re a Congressional representative in a non-leadership position and you can’t get past the filibuster, I’d argue drafting a bill to address a problem is just about the best you can do. So yes, I’d argue that’s doing a very good job. I don’t hold it against the bill drafter that they have to deal with institutional inertia and a multi-party, bicameral federal bureaucracy.
Right, but the argument is about the democratic party as a whole not the few individuals with no power within the party that are doing a good job.
In that regard, the true question is, do those powerful Democrats represent the center of gravity of the voting population that put them there? Or, more simply, is the average Democratic voter centrist or progressive? If the average Democratic voter is centrist, then we could argue that these leaders are simply representing the will of their constituents.
I don’t think it’s that complicated. With the two party system the main hurdle is just securing the support of the DNC. Once you’re established the choice is the incumbent or a conservative. So I think most elected officials may have represented their constituents level of progressive ideas at the time they were first elected. So in a party where we claim to be progressives, the elected officials are conserving the status quo of when they were first elected 30 years ago.
In short, there are more voters who agree with the moderate wing of the party than who disagree with it.
I get that, but I tend to believe American politics has the propensity to have the cart lead the horse. If the cart spent over a decade screaming at the horse that Democrats are the reasonable party, and reasonable people have to make concessions to conservative to make that progress, no matter how unreasonable those conservatives are…then of course a large portion of the constituents will still hold those beliefs in the long run.
Third way politics was not invented by the democratic constituents, stop the steal was not invented by conservative constituents. The unfortunate reality of America is that most of the people voting are being influenced by the leadership of political parties instead of the political parties being influenced by the constituency.
Right, but the argument is about the democratic party as a whole not the few individuals with no power within the party that are doing a good job.
Which is why the rest of my commentary addressed the party, its leadership structure, and its voters…
I don’t think it’s that complicated. With the two party system the main hurdle is just securing the support of the DNC. Once you’re established the choice is the incumbent or a conservative. So I think most elected officials may have represented their constituents level of progressive ideas at the time they were first elected. So in a party where we claim to be progressives, the elected officials are conserving the status quo of when they were first elected 30 years ago.
I think that’s grossly oversimplifying things, to the point where I’m not even sure it’s worth investing more effort in a response.
I get that, but I tend to believe American politics has the propensity to have the cart lead the horse. If the cart spent over a decade screaming at the horse that Democrats are the reasonable party, and reasonable people have to make concessions to conservative to make that progress, no matter how unreasonable those conservatives are…then of course a large portion of the constituents will still hold those beliefs in the long run.
I think the problem with arguing against a metaphor is that it’s grounded in how you, specifically, see the problem. I simply can’t argue against how you see things, nor do I intend to try.
Third way politics was not invented by the democratic constituents, stop the steal was not invented by conservative constituents. The unfortunate reality of America is that most of the people voting are being influenced by the leadership of political parties instead of the political parties being influenced by the constituency.
I give human beings way more credit than that, especially in aggregate. The exact same could be said about you being influenced by some kind of outside group, and I’m sure you’d argue that your beliefs are sincere and informed by evidence and experience. If you’re taking the position that your beliefs are legitimate, but everyone else’s beliefs are influenced by propaganda, then you and I are seeing the world very differently.
I’m not sure this is worth either of our time anymore. Best of luck.
Which is why the rest of my commentary addressed the party, its leadership structure, and its voters…
Okay, so you are conceding the point about the democratic party making a "real"effort about wages then?
think that’s grossly oversimplifying things, to the point where I’m not even sure it’s worth investing more effort in a response.
Entrenched encumbrancey is a fairly simple well known issue in American voting… I think your just just avoiding the argument.
think the problem with arguing against a metaphor is that it’s grounded in how you, specifically, see the problem. I simply can’t argue against how you see things, nor do I intend to try.
Lol, as opposed to what? Do you sincerely think that what you believe to be the problem is anything other than a belief? I’m just being honest and not trying to make it seem that my views represent the only realistic depiction of American politics.
give human beings way more credit than that, especially in aggregate. The exact same could be said about you being influenced by some kind of outside group
You think the American people collectively came up with the concept of third way politics? It’s been a theory in politics since the 50’s, was popularized in the 80-90s in Australia and in America by Bill Clinton.
I’m sure you’d argue that your beliefs are sincere and informed by evidence and experience. If you’re taking the position that your beliefs are legitimate, but everyone else’s beliefs are influenced by propaganda, then you and I are seeing the world very differently.
I’m not coming up with political theory…of course my beliefs are influenced by others people’s ideas, so are yours. The idea of political discourse is engaging in those ideas with others to better understand them.
not sure this is worth either of our time anymore. Best of luck.
Probably should have known better when you didn’t even bother to read your own sources. Go kick rocks.
Doing enough should be dragging price gouging executives through the street. But I guess wagging a finger at them will definitely make my grocery bill go down🤷🏼♂️
It is, in fact, time to stop being the bigger person and start being the more effective person. I don’t care if we set an example, let’s get some shit done.
They’re asking the wrong question. The question should be who the economy is thriving for? The answer to that question will tell you everything you need to know.
My wife and I are making more money than we ever have before. I got a raise and she got a new job that pays more than her old one. We’re solidly on the high side of middle class. Sure, inflation pinched a bit of those gains, and it sucks that new and used cars are so ridiculously expensive, but both of ours are paid off so we’ll just keep driving them. It’s not all doom and gloom out there right now.
Edit: Downvoted for interrupting the doom loop. Never change, lemmings.
You’re reinforcing my point. The economy has improved for people who were already well off. The people on the low side are getting pinched even harder.
No, I’m not. You have no idea what our finances looked like just a year ago, but it’s clear you also don’t care. You’ve decided you only want evidence that agrees with you.
The statistics of this very article are the evidence. It’s right there in black and white!
A majority of Americans say that their own personal finances are doing well, and even when the question is expanded to their whole state, voters say the economy has improved.
You countered by dismissing it, so I met you where you wanted to be. But even that wasn’t enough to dig you out of your preconceived belief. Carry on with your circle jerk.
Counter argument. I have also never made this much money. Neither has my boyfriend. We work at a hospital and make decent money. In Oct 2020 we were finally able to get our own apartment. We then moved back in with our old roommate last year. Because we were getting close to being homeless.
People were warning up about the disappearing middle class decades ago. I remember hearing about it in the 90s. And here we are. The wage gap between the top and the bottom has only widened.
I really don't like that the sources on this article are missing.
Sure, that’s a lot of money for the wealthy who control 93% of stock, but it’s also tens of millions of Americans who will have a more comfortable and secure retirement. In fact, the number of Americans who have over $1 million in their retirement accounts grew by 20% in the last quarter of 2023.
Fine and dandy, except that half of Americans don't have a retirement account. Or 47% of Americans.
So while retirement indexes are up, 1:2 people are not going to see that.
Inflation eased slightly in April — the first time this year that has happened. Overall inflation edged down to 3.4% and slipped to 3.6% when you exclude food and energy costs. (food expected to rise by an additional 2.2%)
Good to see the brakes are working. But just remember that not everyone goes out to by a car or house on a twice-a-week basis. But everyone does with the grocery store. Which in Biden's defense, he has started trying to pull back.
Surely there are some numbers we could look at every day besides the stock market numbers. Like couldn’t we have Real Income and/or Purchasing Power right next to the DOW and the S&P? Or how about instead of the Dow and S&P since, like you said - most Americans lives don’t change by the changes in the stock market.
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