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
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 share their opinion but also wish more people would care about metrics other than gdp and stock market indexes when a Republican is in office.
The news babbles about the real economy and how we’re on the brink of a recession tirelessly whenever a Democrat is in the presidency, then magically when a Republican is even just elected (not even in office yet) all of those “meaningless” numbers are suddenly meaningful, and it turns out there’s actually nothing wrong with using unemployment numbers, the GDP, and the Dow Jones index to determine economic health, even as more go homeless.
The only well-known politician I’ve seen talk consistently about this regardless of the party in the white house is Bernie.
The economy is doing good for what the president can do.
But the old metrics are not good. It used to just be employment rate that mattered, you know if people were employed that was sufficient. Now it’s wages that have not kept up and it’s a big issue.
No one can undo years of economic turbulence in three years. Everyone feels like they’re being gaslit because they are. The patient will bleed out before you finish applying the first bandaid.
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?
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