The leading economic indicators show the U.S. economy is performing well, but most Americans still believe economic conditions are extremely poor — as if the country was mired in a deep recession. What explains this discrepancy? The unemployment rate stands at
While wages for jobs may have gone up a bit, prices for groceries and household items have gone up a lot. Renting or buying an apartment or home have also increased, adding to the burden. Health, car and home insurance prices have gone up. Things that affect people every day have increased in price yet wages have not kept up, therefore no disposable income. So while the stock market looks great and corporate profits are amazing, families are having to scrimp, save and budget to make ends meet. We are not thriving, we are surviving.
In addition to the factors you noted, many are back in the office again--compelled to be there whether it's necessary or not. Which the C-suite/commercial real estate investors have demanded, but the rank-and-file--especially those making under $80k with families--have been dreading. Some people have had to resume the costs of the commute, and for parents of young children, paying for after school care programs which have also gone up in price (working from home, you can pop out for a few minutes to pick up your kid from school--it's a big savings!). And some will be resuming their student loan payments soon as well, so that' another stress point. Honestly I just feel like a lot of people are stressed out & very stretched financially-- and politically, that's a big problem for the Biden administration.
Well said. Great analysis. Any thoughts on how President Biden can tackle those realities and how to message his ideas?
The idea that we have to try things (potential solutions) and if they don’t work , try another approach (a La New Deal) seems to have fallen out of favor . It is just so easy to criticize that nothing seems to get done with regard to these problems.
Thanks for this explanation of why there's so much dissatisfaction with the economy under Biden, Judd. The ratios of executive pay to workers' pay are outrageous. We have to do all we can to get Biden re-elected and flip the House so Democrats can take this on.
I doubt, Kate, that the democrats will take on the issue of top corporate pay. Even our democratic representatives are basically rich. Top corporate pay is decided by boards of directors, very rich people themselves. Their world view about value is warped by years of competing for "top talent" at the head of the company. There is no small amount of competition to see who can reward their management stars the most. As I have noted before, unregulated capitalism is a rigged game. America ignores this wage gap at its peril.
Joe Manchin and other Republicrats are only doing what their constituents want them to do, specifically, take care of white peopleand leave the others to fend for themselves. We will never solve problems such as hunger and poverty until we either end racism or make white people feel the same pain as black people. I don’t expect this to happen in my lifetime; racism is, was, and will be for the foreseeable future a part of who Americans are. Anyone “not like us” is to be feared as the enemy. While our country is somewhat better then most others in the way it treats minorities, we have a long way to go before we can truly brag about being a “great nation.”
Of course CEO compensation is an issue. That said, I put a lot of the blame our nation’s exceptional mainstream media’s economic reporting. This in primarily giving Republican politicians undeserved frameless access, focusing on red state Republican voters, and reporting on the Fed as if interest rate actions is what’s needed to bring inflation down. A huge problem with that is that the affect of interest rates on this inflationary period is minor.
Besides, the lousy -- almost malignant -- reporting gets echoed in social media.
Elizabeth Warren explained at the beginning on the damage that Jerome Powell was doing through raising interest rates--making it harder to get mortgages, and buy houses and afford new cars. And, those in the know say that Powell is in favor of the Republicans gaining back power!
It’s inexplicable, or at least a mystery (to me at least) why Biden renominated Powell.
Too: besides being irrelevant to addressing inflation and impoverishing the little people with increased interest expensive, high rates enrich >1%ers who have a lot of their wealth tied up in interest rates sensitive financial instruments in which the higher the rate, the more they make.
Are you speculating or you know for a fact? Even a chair that meets Manchinema’s standards would at least be a Dem and less likely to act in a way that would hurt Biden.
Agree: my theory is that excess media part of all our ‘problems’ . Way way too many opinions vying for attention & support which means $$. So want to say to half of them (any half) “Just shut up and sit down”
The increasing number of homeless begging on the streets in my hometown of Milwaukee WI reminds me this economy, this country, does not take care of its citizens. It exploits them. Exploitation is the bedrock principle. So when you think about it, the increase in homelessness proves our economy is getting even more efficient at exploitation. Squeezing out every last dime. Just about everything is privatized or heading that way. K12 education is currently being redesigned in that direction. I think K12 education may be the last public community based enterprise to fall (at least I can’t think of another that’s left--oh, maybe libraries). With my retirement benefits of Medicare and Social Security I have stability but have noticed increasing complexity in my Medicare benefits. I can see it is the insurance industry and not the law taking charge of healthcare, step by step. We are built this way. Our elected representatives think they are creating laws but they are really just puppets of the economy. With 401Ks, the great bailout, relentless lobbying by for profit industries, Citizens United and other incremental steps I think they conceded legislative power to Wall Street. The fools will never know what hit them. One need not understand this to know full well the fix is in.
Yes, 'squeezing out every last dime' is how this country has been run for too long. It's time we recognize the down side of Laissez-Faire but this Congress is not interested in setting some balance. Union strikes are seeing results in bringing to account some of the egregious discrepancies. Citizens United was a huge mistake and the sooner we can get that legislated out the better.
These “polls” kill me... I’m almost 50 and never have been polled except in a Democratic news letter that ultimately leads to asking for a donation. Honestly where and when and to who are these polls being given? How many people are in the poll and is it truthful? I have a ton of friends and a ton of family that would love to be a part of these polls... I don’t know one person that said I was a part of that poll .... I think it’s a media hoax just like how the big red wave was coming this last midterm..... it should be criminal to pay a full time employee under 50k a year when the top makes so so so much more. Hopefully that big blue wave will come and the much needed reform can happen and the political circus we are in everyday finally ceases with many behind bars. Will journalism ever get over its circus too? Do we really need to look at trumps plane on the tarmac or taking off for hours on end ...
Melanie, check into YouGov surveys. I get them in my inbox about once a week, and approximately 10% of them are political polls (they survey for all kinds of other stuff too). I know it doesn't sound like much, but I do get a little satisfaction in letting them know that at least someone out here feels pretty damn good about the direction we're heading with Biden.
When the Securities and Exchange Commission was established by FDR in 1933, stock buybacks were made illegal. Fifty years later, President Reagan made them legal again as one of his many neoliberal efforts to deregulate private industries. Neoliberal policies have been responsible for gutting our middle class and creating the ever-expanding wealth gap that plagues us today. What was the New Deal initiated under FDR became the Raw Deal established under Reagan.
"Another piece to the puzzle is that millions of Americans are mired in low-paying jobs, struggling to make ends meet, and watching the fruits of their labor get funneled to wealthy CEOs and investors."
As a retiree working for the first time in 40 years working in an hourly wage job, I can see this first hand for the first time since I retired. Schedules jerked around, hours jumbled up, 39 hours max to avoid overtime pay, and many of the advances made for workers now sidelined in favor of shareholder dividends which leads to executive pay incentives while leaving the people on the front lines behind. Companies basically give the workers the snub as you should be happy to even have a job. Benefit costs, to accomodate shareholder profit, have been shifted to workers taking more of their pay for their 401K and healthcare costs which high deductibles and co-pays. These actions burden the lower end workers the most and have some affect on management, but those costs are miniscule to what the hourly front end worker pays as a leaving them with less expendable income for wealth building.
I think in addition to all of these facts, there is at least one more.
The media is largely a right wing bastion.
Thats where over and over again they yell out the Republicans lie that the economy is failing.
Also the routine tax increases by the Fed.
I think , continued long past the necessity presented by ‘inflation’. And I think it was as much a political move as it was a check on the economy.
However, in addition , price hijacking is now routine.
What I could buy in groceries for approximately 158.00
has now become approximately 200.00.
They do it ‘ because they can ‘ and the bonus, in the meantime, it works to keep up appearances on how bad the economy is.
That translates to its ‘Biden s fault’.
Because of the spectacular criminal misdeeds of Trump and his finally being held accountable, Republicans are going after Biden on the most ‘trumped up ‘ charges.
I am glad to see there are proposals to encourage re-balancing the economy. Personally, I would have put the penalty at anything over 25-to-1 but I suppose we have to start _someplace_. Another obstacle to fixing this is that because of their high salaries, CEO's and others have obscenely large impacts on prices, since merchandise is aimed at those who have the money to pay more, since poorer people have more limited ability to pay and thus aren't very profitable. I think the price and size of housing is another effect. Why build a bunch of affordable homes when you can build bigger and attract more money with fewer homes and less effort?
Exactly! And it's going to take more than getting Dems in control of the federal govt - we need a working majority, which means that for these purposes Dems who won't vote for progressive measures or set aside the filibuster to pass them are no help. That means both getting out the vote, and repeatedly telling politicians that their constituents want this.
The suggested tax on CEO pay would be a good start. Better, would be for that to be a base tax that increases by 1% for every additional 100 points of CEO-to-median-worker discrepancy.
If it were only about what I'd like to see, which of course it's not, both corporate and CEO-income taxes would be subject to a 90% tax of anything over 100 to 1. Once that survived court challenges - we do need a working majority that will rein in this extreme court, see below - the corporations would rapidly shift to some other compensation system. Which means the laws would have to be written carefully, as the CEOs and their allies are unlikely to simply raise worker pay. They will look for other means of unequal compensation.
In regard to the extreme court, the best and simplest (in some ways) solution would be for Congress to use its power to transfer all appellate jurisdiction from the Supreme Court to an all-new Federal Review Court created with all the guardrails - term limits with staggered terms so each President appoints one justice every 2 years, enforceable ethics rules, transparency, etc, etc. A center-right alternative would be to expand the current court to 13, adding enforceable ethics rules. The Supreme Court would retain only the original jurisdiction specified in the Constitution, to hear certain categories of cases such as those between states or brought by a representative of a foreign government. In either case, the law would need to specify that the Supreme Court has no power to review it.
Hope, like love, is more action than feeling. Jessica Craven's substack Chop Wood, Carry Water has daily suggestions on pushing politicians in better directions.
This is exactly the type of reporting that I love sharing to my followers on Facebook, many of whom lack the data to back up their beliefs or hunches that there’s more to the story than MSM are reporting. Thank you for this. Those ratios are obscene.
Thanks for addressing the corporate influences on our "inflation." I remember learning how many Ceo's raised food prices "because we can." When the prices of food increase, most average people notice; same with the price of fossil fuels--gas and heating and cooling our domains; and the cost of every insurance (auto, home, healthcare)increases, we all notice. I laugh at "disposable" as an income term.
By the way, all the dollar stores around me (Central NJ) have raised tht price of items to $1.25 each! And, I'm sure it's "because we can."
I can hear Bernie Sanders pitch in the background like theme music..."when the top one percent own most of the wealth...corporate greed...the working class...."
The corporate media say it all the time! Another thing is President Biden, the corporate media will not give out news if it’s good for hard working Americans!
If Biden is re-elected, the Dems take back the House and the malevolent forces of Manchin, Sinema and McConnell are neutralized in the Senate, one of the first orders of business needs to be to address this problem. For far too long the benefits of the economy have been hoarded by the top .00001%, and it needs to stop. Bring back the marginal rates of the Eisenhower Era, rich people will still be rich, but the rest of us will not be squabbling over scraps.
US companies can claim executive compensation as a business expense on their corporate income tax. If companies were only able to claim, oh let’s say $1,000,000, as a deduction, and any salary above that limit was just classed an expense, I expect that shareholders and other owners would quickly reduce corporate pay scales.
I agree with that, I actually thought maybe it would be good to tax corporations the amount they pay CEO's over the 25x amount annual pay of the lowest paid employee, the idea being that if a company wants to raise CEO pay, first they have to increase the employee pay. It would also encourage companies to hire people full time since part-timers would earn less, and thus impact the CEO max pay.
While wages for jobs may have gone up a bit, prices for groceries and household items have gone up a lot. Renting or buying an apartment or home have also increased, adding to the burden. Health, car and home insurance prices have gone up. Things that affect people every day have increased in price yet wages have not kept up, therefore no disposable income. So while the stock market looks great and corporate profits are amazing, families are having to scrimp, save and budget to make ends meet. We are not thriving, we are surviving.
In addition to the factors you noted, many are back in the office again--compelled to be there whether it's necessary or not. Which the C-suite/commercial real estate investors have demanded, but the rank-and-file--especially those making under $80k with families--have been dreading. Some people have had to resume the costs of the commute, and for parents of young children, paying for after school care programs which have also gone up in price (working from home, you can pop out for a few minutes to pick up your kid from school--it's a big savings!). And some will be resuming their student loan payments soon as well, so that' another stress point. Honestly I just feel like a lot of people are stressed out & very stretched financially-- and politically, that's a big problem for the Biden administration.
Bingo!
Well said. Great analysis. Any thoughts on how President Biden can tackle those realities and how to message his ideas?
The idea that we have to try things (potential solutions) and if they don’t work , try another approach (a La New Deal) seems to have fallen out of favor . It is just so easy to criticize that nothing seems to get done with regard to these problems.
Thanks for this explanation of why there's so much dissatisfaction with the economy under Biden, Judd. The ratios of executive pay to workers' pay are outrageous. We have to do all we can to get Biden re-elected and flip the House so Democrats can take this on.
I doubt, Kate, that the democrats will take on the issue of top corporate pay. Even our democratic representatives are basically rich. Top corporate pay is decided by boards of directors, very rich people themselves. Their world view about value is warped by years of competing for "top talent" at the head of the company. There is no small amount of competition to see who can reward their management stars the most. As I have noted before, unregulated capitalism is a rigged game. America ignores this wage gap at its peril.
Joe Manchin and other Republicrats are only doing what their constituents want them to do, specifically, take care of white peopleand leave the others to fend for themselves. We will never solve problems such as hunger and poverty until we either end racism or make white people feel the same pain as black people. I don’t expect this to happen in my lifetime; racism is, was, and will be for the foreseeable future a part of who Americans are. Anyone “not like us” is to be feared as the enemy. While our country is somewhat better then most others in the way it treats minorities, we have a long way to go before we can truly brag about being a “great nation.”
Of course CEO compensation is an issue. That said, I put a lot of the blame our nation’s exceptional mainstream media’s economic reporting. This in primarily giving Republican politicians undeserved frameless access, focusing on red state Republican voters, and reporting on the Fed as if interest rate actions is what’s needed to bring inflation down. A huge problem with that is that the affect of interest rates on this inflationary period is minor.
Besides, the lousy -- almost malignant -- reporting gets echoed in social media.
Elizabeth Warren explained at the beginning on the damage that Jerome Powell was doing through raising interest rates--making it harder to get mortgages, and buy houses and afford new cars. And, those in the know say that Powell is in favor of the Republicans gaining back power!
It’s inexplicable, or at least a mystery (to me at least) why Biden renominated Powell.
Too: besides being irrelevant to addressing inflation and impoverishing the little people with increased interest expensive, high rates enrich >1%ers who have a lot of their wealth tied up in interest rates sensitive financial instruments in which the higher the rate, the more they make.
All true. Too true.
I too wondered about the wisdom in keeping Powell. Perhaps a misguided attempt at horse trading?
Powell was renominated by Biden because he knew it wouldn't be a battle to get Senate approval.
Are you speculating or you know for a fact? Even a chair that meets Manchinema’s standards would at least be a Dem and less likely to act in a way that would hurt Biden.
Agree: my theory is that excess media part of all our ‘problems’ . Way way too many opinions vying for attention & support which means $$. So want to say to half of them (any half) “Just shut up and sit down”
The increasing number of homeless begging on the streets in my hometown of Milwaukee WI reminds me this economy, this country, does not take care of its citizens. It exploits them. Exploitation is the bedrock principle. So when you think about it, the increase in homelessness proves our economy is getting even more efficient at exploitation. Squeezing out every last dime. Just about everything is privatized or heading that way. K12 education is currently being redesigned in that direction. I think K12 education may be the last public community based enterprise to fall (at least I can’t think of another that’s left--oh, maybe libraries). With my retirement benefits of Medicare and Social Security I have stability but have noticed increasing complexity in my Medicare benefits. I can see it is the insurance industry and not the law taking charge of healthcare, step by step. We are built this way. Our elected representatives think they are creating laws but they are really just puppets of the economy. With 401Ks, the great bailout, relentless lobbying by for profit industries, Citizens United and other incremental steps I think they conceded legislative power to Wall Street. The fools will never know what hit them. One need not understand this to know full well the fix is in.
Yes, 'squeezing out every last dime' is how this country has been run for too long. It's time we recognize the down side of Laissez-Faire but this Congress is not interested in setting some balance. Union strikes are seeing results in bringing to account some of the egregious discrepancies. Citizens United was a huge mistake and the sooner we can get that legislated out the better.
These “polls” kill me... I’m almost 50 and never have been polled except in a Democratic news letter that ultimately leads to asking for a donation. Honestly where and when and to who are these polls being given? How many people are in the poll and is it truthful? I have a ton of friends and a ton of family that would love to be a part of these polls... I don’t know one person that said I was a part of that poll .... I think it’s a media hoax just like how the big red wave was coming this last midterm..... it should be criminal to pay a full time employee under 50k a year when the top makes so so so much more. Hopefully that big blue wave will come and the much needed reform can happen and the political circus we are in everyday finally ceases with many behind bars. Will journalism ever get over its circus too? Do we really need to look at trumps plane on the tarmac or taking off for hours on end ...
Melanie, check into YouGov surveys. I get them in my inbox about once a week, and approximately 10% of them are political polls (they survey for all kinds of other stuff too). I know it doesn't sound like much, but I do get a little satisfaction in letting them know that at least someone out here feels pretty damn good about the direction we're heading with Biden.
Your YouGov account can easily predict how you would answer any question they ask.
Didn't the polls predict the Red Wave in 2022?
When the Securities and Exchange Commission was established by FDR in 1933, stock buybacks were made illegal. Fifty years later, President Reagan made them legal again as one of his many neoliberal efforts to deregulate private industries. Neoliberal policies have been responsible for gutting our middle class and creating the ever-expanding wealth gap that plagues us today. What was the New Deal initiated under FDR became the Raw Deal established under Reagan.
🎯
Perhaps if not restricted altogether, put a tax on any stock buyback.
"Another piece to the puzzle is that millions of Americans are mired in low-paying jobs, struggling to make ends meet, and watching the fruits of their labor get funneled to wealthy CEOs and investors."
As a retiree working for the first time in 40 years working in an hourly wage job, I can see this first hand for the first time since I retired. Schedules jerked around, hours jumbled up, 39 hours max to avoid overtime pay, and many of the advances made for workers now sidelined in favor of shareholder dividends which leads to executive pay incentives while leaving the people on the front lines behind. Companies basically give the workers the snub as you should be happy to even have a job. Benefit costs, to accomodate shareholder profit, have been shifted to workers taking more of their pay for their 401K and healthcare costs which high deductibles and co-pays. These actions burden the lower end workers the most and have some affect on management, but those costs are miniscule to what the hourly front end worker pays as a leaving them with less expendable income for wealth building.
I think in addition to all of these facts, there is at least one more.
The media is largely a right wing bastion.
Thats where over and over again they yell out the Republicans lie that the economy is failing.
Also the routine tax increases by the Fed.
I think , continued long past the necessity presented by ‘inflation’. And I think it was as much a political move as it was a check on the economy.
However, in addition , price hijacking is now routine.
What I could buy in groceries for approximately 158.00
has now become approximately 200.00.
They do it ‘ because they can ‘ and the bonus, in the meantime, it works to keep up appearances on how bad the economy is.
That translates to its ‘Biden s fault’.
Because of the spectacular criminal misdeeds of Trump and his finally being held accountable, Republicans are going after Biden on the most ‘trumped up ‘ charges.
Ridiculously republican.
I am glad to see there are proposals to encourage re-balancing the economy. Personally, I would have put the penalty at anything over 25-to-1 but I suppose we have to start _someplace_. Another obstacle to fixing this is that because of their high salaries, CEO's and others have obscenely large impacts on prices, since merchandise is aimed at those who have the money to pay more, since poorer people have more limited ability to pay and thus aren't very profitable. I think the price and size of housing is another effect. Why build a bunch of affordable homes when you can build bigger and attract more money with fewer homes and less effort?
Exactly! And it's going to take more than getting Dems in control of the federal govt - we need a working majority, which means that for these purposes Dems who won't vote for progressive measures or set aside the filibuster to pass them are no help. That means both getting out the vote, and repeatedly telling politicians that their constituents want this.
The suggested tax on CEO pay would be a good start. Better, would be for that to be a base tax that increases by 1% for every additional 100 points of CEO-to-median-worker discrepancy.
Joan, well said and I love your idea on 1% for each 100 points of pay dsparity btwn worker & CEO. Maybe even more!
If it were only about what I'd like to see, which of course it's not, both corporate and CEO-income taxes would be subject to a 90% tax of anything over 100 to 1. Once that survived court challenges - we do need a working majority that will rein in this extreme court, see below - the corporations would rapidly shift to some other compensation system. Which means the laws would have to be written carefully, as the CEOs and their allies are unlikely to simply raise worker pay. They will look for other means of unequal compensation.
In regard to the extreme court, the best and simplest (in some ways) solution would be for Congress to use its power to transfer all appellate jurisdiction from the Supreme Court to an all-new Federal Review Court created with all the guardrails - term limits with staggered terms so each President appoints one justice every 2 years, enforceable ethics rules, transparency, etc, etc. A center-right alternative would be to expand the current court to 13, adding enforceable ethics rules. The Supreme Court would retain only the original jurisdiction specified in the Constitution, to hear certain categories of cases such as those between states or brought by a representative of a foreign government. In either case, the law would need to specify that the Supreme Court has no power to review it.
So many things to address.
I just hope the lessons are learned and politicians become proactive instead of reactive to it all.
Hope, like love, is more action than feeling. Jessica Craven's substack Chop Wood, Carry Water has daily suggestions on pushing politicians in better directions.
Thanks for the reference Joan.
This is exactly the type of reporting that I love sharing to my followers on Facebook, many of whom lack the data to back up their beliefs or hunches that there’s more to the story than MSM are reporting. Thank you for this. Those ratios are obscene.
👏🏻👏🏻That would be satisfying. 😀
Thanks for addressing the corporate influences on our "inflation." I remember learning how many Ceo's raised food prices "because we can." When the prices of food increase, most average people notice; same with the price of fossil fuels--gas and heating and cooling our domains; and the cost of every insurance (auto, home, healthcare)increases, we all notice. I laugh at "disposable" as an income term.
By the way, all the dollar stores around me (Central NJ) have raised tht price of items to $1.25 each! And, I'm sure it's "because we can."
I can hear Bernie Sanders pitch in the background like theme music..."when the top one percent own most of the wealth...corporate greed...the working class...."
There is a reason for corporate profits are amazing, encapsulated in a phrase. Price-gouging!
Exactly. Read my post
The corporate media say it all the time! Another thing is President Biden, the corporate media will not give out news if it’s good for hard working Americans!
Right, the Ceo's and Cfo's who run corporate media are among these offenders.
If Biden is re-elected, the Dems take back the House and the malevolent forces of Manchin, Sinema and McConnell are neutralized in the Senate, one of the first orders of business needs to be to address this problem. For far too long the benefits of the economy have been hoarded by the top .00001%, and it needs to stop. Bring back the marginal rates of the Eisenhower Era, rich people will still be rich, but the rest of us will not be squabbling over scraps.
US companies can claim executive compensation as a business expense on their corporate income tax. If companies were only able to claim, oh let’s say $1,000,000, as a deduction, and any salary above that limit was just classed an expense, I expect that shareholders and other owners would quickly reduce corporate pay scales.
I agree with that, I actually thought maybe it would be good to tax corporations the amount they pay CEO's over the 25x amount annual pay of the lowest paid employee, the idea being that if a company wants to raise CEO pay, first they have to increase the employee pay. It would also encourage companies to hire people full time since part-timers would earn less, and thus impact the CEO max pay.
I didn’t understand the difference between:
a business expense,
salaries,
& “any salary above that limit was just classed an expense”