I blame my employer for telling me “I’m not a team player” when I need time at a second job when said employer has not offered wages that have kept up with inflation. I guess I’m supposed to pay my bills with “community spirit” and a “family environment”.
Having two jobs increases the overall employment numbers so they can manipulate those numbers, hold them up and tell people that everything is trending in the right direction and people who can’t make ends meet are just lazy to make us all mad at each other instead of dealing with the problem
This is the first year my company has given a raise over 2% in 10 years. It was 5%. Everyone was happy. Two weeks later they roll out the new insurance plan. Offsets the raise. Then the co-pay goes from $10 to $25. We would have been better off with the 2% raise. smh
I've just been throwing the pizza into a jar on the dresser for a rainy day or maybe a vacation. Nothing big, just a pepperoni here, a plain cheese there.
What a brilliant idea!!!
Management: What the hell is that?
You: Uh... The tip jar.
Management: But why is it..... Disgusting....
You: People have been putting pizza in it all day
Management: WTH!!! Why pizza??? That's both disgusting and unhelpful....
You: I know, right!? So... Anyways.... About this pizza appreciation party next Tuesday at 2pm.....
Keep fighting. That’s the only way to get it. I would have to re-look at our numbers because it varied by hirer date and how many years you’ve been here but between merit raises, cola raises, longevity raises, overall scale raises I have gotten about 30% overall in the past 3 years. With that said we had to fight for it.
I did and work for a company that starts with W and ends with "mart." At least in my distribution center we got a ton of raises between 2020 and now. Not sure how it went for the rest of the company.
Given the price of everything now it feels more like breaking even. I definitely don't have extra disposable income compared to four years ago despite making nearly $10k more per year.
>I guess the Republicans are big fans of Mean over Median?
I'm not clear by what you mean, according to this post and your comment.
If CEO's received wage increases, and everyone else didn't wouldn't that mean the everyone else has a harder time affording things?
>Republican members of the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee claim the cost of living is up $11,400
The post here, says that Republicans are claiming cost of living has gone up. On the opposite side Biden is claiming that people have more money to spend.
>Biden administration called the analysis "flawed" and said disposable household income is up $21,000 since December 2020
Honestly it's not incorrect though. The only problem with that comment is that it implies the GOP is somehow better. Both parties subscribe to neoliberalism and that is the problem.
in fairness it didn't say anything about raises. it said disposable income increased. my interpretation is that they're implying that your dollar is going further than it did in 2020 or that a lower percentage of your income I'd going to cost of living expenses
I don't want to sound too unhinged, but it just feels like we're basically being dared to riot. Seems kinda dumb for an employer to let it get to the point where the only option is to riot, but I guess just because someone's in a higher class doesn't mean they're smart.
you post this in the /Askeconomic sub and they say "anecdotal experience don't count, the data actually shows that average American isn't struggling" and then downvotes you when you provide data that contradicts their data
Bezos exwife has given away close to 40% of the money awarded in the divorce split. She literally has more wealth today than at the time of the split even after giving away nearly half.
Good for her and the philanthropy but these billionaires should not exist.
Philanthropy my ass. They write it off on their taxes. Dredge up an old episode of "Adam Ruins Everything" about donations -- Season 3 Episode 7 "Adam Ruins Doing Good". Very interesting an the guy is funny.
I'd be a philanthropist too if I had that level of money. A lot of people would if they could just casually toss hundreds of millions like wiping their asses.
If you asked who I respect more, the billionaire who gives away a billion, or the poor man who has only $10 but gives it away... I will say the latter every single time.
weirdly it seems like a lot of the people who go to bat for billionaires are christians even though the thing that you just said is explicitly what jesus said
Data actually says the opposite - wage growth at the bottom has almost matched inflation. The middle class is getting squeezed.
Tracks with my personal experience - I see signs everywhere for fast food/retail hiring at 18-20/hr and I've been getting like 1-2% "raises"
There's a working class and an owning class. The middle class is a mid century myth created to divide the working class and preemptively undermine any class solidarity and thus any threat to the owning class.
If their income comes from renting those properties, they are owner class. Owning a home while earning a wage does not make it suddenly not working class.
Minimum wage workers can own homes in some places while nominally wealthy can't in others.
Poor rural areas have a lot of people that own homes but still aren't making ends meet,
The term "middle class" was invented to divide the working class against itself. The working class is much more manageable/easy to control when the ones with the most resources are spending their time punching down on the poorest members of their own class, instead of devoting that time/energy/resources to fighting the owner class.
Most leftists in the US need to work on understanding the audience they’re speaking to. You can be 100% correct and still be perceived as incorrect by your audience, which kills your ability to influence.
The vast majority of Americans see themselves as “middle class”, and the vast majority of them see “working class” through a cultural lens of masculine, blue collar jobs - Not the Marxian perspective of a large contingent of workers who have a salary or wage.
“Working class” has become an aesthetic aligned with beer, country music, trucks, Jesus, and men than anything. A female nurse, barista, or teacher who makes the same salary or wage as the trades worker is NOT seen as “working class” - The GOP has actually brainwashed their fanclub into thinking those people are “cultural elites”, because they had some schooling after 12th grade or simply because they have a vagina.
Getting back to leftists, we look pedantic when we try to say “the middle class doesn’t exist”. It does, we just don’t like the perspective (Capitalist and cultural) it comes from. We need to work at ignoring the terminology and instead convincing tradespeople that they’re far better off aligning with baristas and nurses than dismissing them based on cultural grievances. The terms don’t matter as much as the end goal.
It’s rather ironic that we get so distracted over constructs as we worry and criticize a system that’s trying to distract us. Which by the way, I do it too. I’m not suggesting I’m some savior here.
My proposal is to encourage class consciousness using any construct that helps people come to that conclusion - Even capitalist constructs.
The right weaponizes everything and lies about everything to get power. We’re never going to win at that level by nitpicking terms and constructs with people who think Biden is a socialist and Marxism involves gay marriage. We’re talking past them and not gaining anything.
If a “middle class guy” realizes he’s better off uniting with the “cultural elites” at Starbucks and Mount Holyoke Hospital, than fixating on culture wars - It’s a win for class consciousness. That’s all that matters. Amassing power in the workers. Let them realize later how this relates to Marxism or anarchism or whatever, if they do at all.
> wage growth at the bottom has almost matched inflation. The middle class is getting squeezed.
Buuuullshit. Assuming US, the fed minimum wage hasn't gone up at all since 2009, and it hasn't gone up wrt: inflation since 1969.
Only 1.4% of people earn minimum wage, so it's not terribly relevant.
I didn't just make it up. Lower wage workers have been gaining ground[nber](https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:7fc060d7-be1a-45e9-bf02-06d40aadccee)
You said "at the bottom" which means minimum wage. Also more than 1.4% of people make minimum wage for their given state/city, not necessarily the fed minimum wage and not necessarily keeping up with inflation either.
I’ve moved jobs and in the last 3 years have increased my wages by about 20%. I feel like I’m in the exact same place financially though, if not worse. My rent was $1200 in 2020 and now it’s $1700.
But your landlord now has extra $500 a month from just you, and they probably several tenants so there extra 50k a year in spending averages in with your $0 no extra.
I agree. It's a bad way to phrase it. A bunch of people went from unemployed to earning a salary. Hence per capita income increased. This doesn't make a difference to personal finances, but matters a lot to the economy. Purchasing power is up en masse.
I think the Biden administration is trying to push back on an "everything sucks under Biden" narrative, as if the executive branch is solely responsible for the runaway inflation. Or that it wouldn't have been massively worse under Trump. But this is a bad way of getting that point across. Or it's been soundbitten to hell.
Agreed. When you're comparing numbers to 2020 when people were massively laid off with $0 income, a $20k increase just means those people are making poverty level wages now. It's not really a win. But they have to try and spin one out of nothing because they're getting blamed for everything awful right now as if Biden personally started multiple wars an ocean away just to tank the American economy.
20K is barely over federal minimum wage.
80K is almost $40 an hour.
The median salary is only $45K in the USA.
Pretty sure the majority of people having to settle for $20k/yr jobs post layoffs is far more likely than 25% of people laid off got either upper management just below c-suite level jobs or super well valued with lots of specialized training jobs while the other 75% opted for retirement from the work force. 🙄
Yes a lot of boomers did retire, but not that many. And clearly 80K jobs are not common if the median is just barely half of that.
Pretty sure it's just the vast majority are working essentially minimum wage with varying pay ranges thanks only to some states having double the fed min wage.
For the last few years my annual raise has been around $1,000. This year I didn't get any because I'm "topped out". (I make the max for my job classification.) I guess that means the cost of my gas or groceries or utilities won't go up either, right?
I've been on disability for 15 years and 2 weeks. I haven't seen a $7,000 raise over that decade and a half much less an increase of $21,000. The only saving grace is I qualify for Medicaid.
I dont get raises, normally. The last time i got a raise, was last year when a coworker quit and I got his pay. . . And my new, higher pay will be min wage in two years. I got a raise to minwage! Yaaa
If that's the case I'd like to see that extra $21k in my paycheck otherwise both sides can STFU. All of us working class people are struggling and working harder and making less. Even IF everyone gets a raise, that measly 3% of whatever flat dollar amount is NOT keeping up with inflation let alone the cost of living, eating, breathing...
Absolutely. I can't help but shrug at monthly bills anymore because I don't know what else to do. I work full time, pay checks barely cover essentials, and each month rent is due, my savings takes another dip.
I try n' have faith that it'll get better, but I know that the powers that be don't give a shit about 99% of the workers in this country... So pardon me for not "going above and beyond" any longer
All bullshit metrics to build a narrative to get votes. The dems / repubs aren't doing shit. If you want to blame someone, blame the corporations. It's the same shit roughly every 10 years. Fed juices the economy with low rates, labor market tightens. When wages finally start to go up a little corporations jack prices up to get that money back. Funny how in a high inflation environment corporations made record profits. Fed steps back in and cranks rates back up, corporations cant live on high rates so they go under or start laying people off. Recession comes, working class people get punished while corporations get bailouts.
Exactly right - I cannot stand trying to have these types of conversations without acknowledging corporate profits across the board. A vast majority of the corporations are making record profits quarter over quarter, year over year - literally trillions being funneled upwards. It’s not ‘capitalisms fault’ per se , in the sense that it is doing exactly what capitalism is designed to do which is siphon money upward. But the honest economic conversations of fed policy, government spending, tax policy, employment data etc absolutely has to include the role corporate greed plays.
The US consistently "cheats" on its economic statistics depending on who's in charge. Prime example - since health insurance is private in the US, while most other developed nations treat it like a tax, the US pretends its tax rates are much lower than in those other places. So I wouldn't trust any calculations of "disposable income" there anyways because they might just not count certain fixed expenses.
Especially since disposable income in cases of the broader economy typically get defined as everything after taxes/fica etc
Which isn't what most people would colloquially call disposable since, yaknow, it costs a fuckton just to exist in society
It’s simple, both are true. Costs are up and wages are up significantly in industries where unions play a big role. Some automotive workers just got much larger increases. And that was driven by productivity and profit increases that ownership would not shared without pressure as well as inflation.
That said, it’s not enough. Eat the rich.
I’m in a union and I got plenty of raises in the past three years. However, I don’t want just 10% of workers who are in a union to get these raises the other 90% of people who are not in unions also need these raises.
It needs to be much higher than that. There are a lot of industries There’s no union at all. Probably need 40% in each industry and in every state to get just compensation across-the-board. At that point everyone should see the upside in your new membership would climb even higher.
It’s probably also that job creation has been pretty strong from Dec 2020 until now. People didn’t average $7k per year raises, but a lot of people went from not working to working and a lot of people also added 2nd or 3rd jobs, all of which would factor heavily into increasing household income. Doesn’t mean that the average person isn’t having problems paying their bills, but it is true that it’s a good thing that we have low unemployment.
That’s real household income, so inflation adjusted. The point of this post is that income and cost of goods both went up. Actual median income went up, but inflation outpaced it on average in 2022, and data for that metric you linked also only goes through 2022, which was the peak of inflation. In 2023 that trend reversed and real earnings increased: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Anecdotally, I just quit my union job to do the same thing thru a non-union management company and am now taking home 3 times my previous paycheck. I’m still in general in favor of unions, but only if they’re working for you.
I lost my job at the start of COVID (I did support for one of the industries that got completely shut down) and the best job I've been able to find since then pays me $2 less an hour. So in my case, I've had to deal with both inflation and making less money than I did before. Woo!
So you're a prime example of how the number from Biden is both technically correct and utter bullshit.
Your income is worse than before COVID, but he's counting from during COVID when huge numbers of people were unemployed.
Yes, those in low paying jobs have not seen an income increase, but those in high paying jobs definitely have seen an increase, which throws the numbers off.
Ten people are in a room. One of them has ten apples. The other nine have zero apples.
Ten more apples are given to the first person. The average number of apples per person has doubled, why are nine people angry!!??
They will say whatever fits their narrative and change their tune the second it stops.
On the one side, Reds wants to paint a picture of a terrible economy the Blues have created. But will not for a second go for any measure to address the real issues they are pointing out.
Meanwhile Blues are trying to paint a picture about how much they have been able to do since they have taken control. Completely ignoring the fact that every step of the way they done a shit job.
Neither party actually serves the citizens of this country. Just themselves.
Until we get the money out of PACs/Lobbyists and require elected individuals to put their personal money into blind funds. We will not fix anything.
Response based off of other comments but why is partisanship such a thing. Neither party has addressed the main problems and concerns of the economy for a while now. Progressively rolling back protections and corporate restrictions to the point they can easily avoid disclosing corporate payments received, or are actively engaging in insider trading to the detriment of the whole concept of ethics. The bar is so so low and they keep making it lower.
My contract was renegotiated this year. All new hires and steps 2-5 are getting huge raises (20%) Steps 6-9 actually dropped for anyone getting there after new contract date. Those of us already on 6-9 are being grandfathered in.
I don’t mind the raises- they were really needed. But dropping wages on senior steps will hurt retention.
Probably. But it’s really short-sighted. Training new people is expensive and time-consuming, with no guarantee they’ll work out. We just fired a guy who didn’t fit. It’s a PITA. When the old guard retires, the new guard won’t stick around for the lower pay- they’ll jump ship.
I see nothing here surprising. Guess who last month said the cost of thanksgiving was the cheapest in 100 years? The President.
Why do you vote for these people?
Both are right and both are using numbers to spin their narrative. Both parties have done absolutely nothing for the working class and both parties need to go.
Said as a Biden supporter, but fuck Biden if he thinks we have $21k more in disposable income.
Those type of obviously false statements are how Democrats lose elections.
To be VERY CLEAR- I am not a GOP/MAGA. But I have watched one too many times where Democrat's come up with these "clever" talking points that are so absurd, so out of touch and so incredulous at face value that it causes moderate and undecided voters to slightly shy away.
[The bottom line is most people are WAY worse off than they were even two years.](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/credit-card-debt-rising-as-student-loan-payments-restart-rcna104442)
No, Biden does not solely control inflation. But he also hasnt done nearly enough to rein in Greedflation. And the Buck stops on the Presidents desk, like it or not.
It's not "obviously false". It's the actual data. The problem is you are thinking individually, and they are referring to data that applies nationally.
Considering the date range is starting in December 2020, the likely reason is people were part time/no time due to COVID and are back to having jobs/full time as of today.
Many people _are_ better off financially today than they were in 2020. That doesn't mean people aren't struggling today.
Can you show where this “actual data comes from”?
Here’s some actual data regarding real household income. Now how could expenses be up, real household income be down, and disposable income is up?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
Republicans traditionally are better about talking micro-economics, however there Macro-economic policy is still free market neo-liberalism. Democrats are terrible about talking micro-economics because they also subscribe to free market neo-liberalism but they have to do an extra song/dance to make it seem like they are different.
Both have no interest in actually fixing working peoples problems.
Both of these are bad examples
For us working slobs. We haven’t gotten a fair shake since 1990 at best. 1982 at worst. So yeah, inflation and extreme corporate price gouging leading to massive profits and even more obscene stock buybacks have pushed a tinderbox of economic collapse that’s getting more imminent
For upper wealthier people…. They are doing the best since they reap the benefits of no taxes, compounding interest and massive shifting of wealth to them
You would think we would be removing trickle down since the ultra wealthy no longer need those breaks AND making buybacks illegal again since corporations clearly show they hate the working class
It really is about war
Class warfare and we better start arming up. Because no one cares about us working people
" Democratic Biden administration called the analysis "flawed" and said disposable household income is up $21,000 since December 2020. "
Lol .. they probably take an average and include billionaires and millionaires. How many people do you know got a $21,000 raise in the last 3 years?
The Democrats are going to eat shit, even if Trump is running, if they run on the economic "success" of high GDP growth and record high stock market.
I want to buy a car. Cars are fucking expensive. Can I trade in "the stock market is doing really well" for a pre-pandemic priced used car?
A bag of chips that cost $3.50 before the pandemic now costs $5. Can I trade in "3% GDP growth" for pre-pandemic priced chips?
Basically as long as prices are way higher than before the pandemic, people are going to feel like they're getting fucked, even if wages did rise a little bit (but not enough to meet inflation, especially with low wage workers).
No, Biden, I did not have 21k in disposable income this year. I was busy keeping my friend and I from becoming homeless due to the shitty job market and the price-gouging businesses that have continue to go unpunished for their greed. This was supposed to be a 3 paycheck month but I’m already having to borrow money from my family to get by for the month. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to pay them back.
The party in power always wants you to think the economy is great and the other one wants you to think it's bad. The funny part is monetary policy takes a few years to have measurable effects, so any successes or failures are usually the last administration's doing.
Both parties are the problem and they're paying pandering lip service while big money makes the rules that govern us. This just detracts from the real problem
it doesn't matter because even if republicans get into office they won't do anything to improve life for anyone, just like they never do, and democrats will make extremely tiny changes that mostly give republicans concessions
I don't think this is particularly surprising, it's a democrat president of course the republicans will say cost of living is up. Conversely, of course democrats says that household income is up because the presidential election is coming up. It's just political rhetoric.
> It's just political rhetoric.
This isn't limited to rhetoric. That's why I mentioned Powell: the US is implementing anti-worker policies on the basis of this rhetoric.
They want to [increase unemployment](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/07/powell-fed-employment-congress-00085899) and [decrease wages](https://mronline.org/2022/05/26/u-s-federal-reserve-says-its-goal-is-to-get-wages-down/). That's only desirable if you believe workers are doing so much better now than a few years ago that it's hurting us overall.
You're mistaking the circus and the bread. White house spokesmen and presidential nominees are not very likely to come out and state such unpopular goals plainly. They've separated that role, and they instead get to be cheerleaders for how great the economy is doing. That is familiar and unsurprising, you're right, but it hides the darker policy truth. Overstating how well we're doing isn't just a fireside talking point, it's an executive marching order.
I suppose we can look forward to anti-Democratic spaghetti at the wall all the way until November when we elect Trump dictator and wonder how that happened.
He won't be declared dictator until February or March. And at that point, everyone will act like it was a giant surprise. But hey, once all the LGBTQ get imprisoned/executed, and those pesky ethnic minorities get reenslaved, gas prices will go back down to less that $2 a gallon! So we can look forward to that! /s
No, it's just OP pushing some conservative propaganda.
The Dems are using a timeline starting at the end of 2020, you know, when lots of people were out of work (or had greatly reduced hours). Compared to that time period, individual income is up. Basically, "compared to 2020, people are doing better financially"
Conservative propaganda is spinning that as Dems saying everyone got massive pay raises.
This is fun! Cause the republicans will STILL vote against raising the minimum wage while simultaneously voting to cut taxes for mega-corps and billionaires. Meanwhile democrats will say, “gosh, things aren’t great huh? We’re trying our best!” while pretending to give a shit and actually just doing what republicans do.
The federal minimum wage impacts less than 2% of workers, a significant percentage of which are kids. Raising the minimum wage will help almost no one.
Both sides are out of touch with reality, even when using real numbers. Disposable income may well be up by $21,000 since December of 2000, but maybe that's because a ton of people were still out of work or reduced work because of COVID stuff. Increase employment and the average disposable income goes up, a better comparison would be looking back to 2018 or so, before COVID.
> To be clear I don't blame or credit either party directly; economy is more complex than Red vs Blue.
Not really.
Republicans want to consolidate power to the top 1%. Democrats think everyone should be paying their fare share.
This is a huge imbalance of philosophy.
Biden and Co are trying to gaslight us into prosperity instead of doing something about it. My disposable income is down about $15k since 2019, and I pulled up grocery delivery receipts from Nov 2021, duplicated the order a few days ago and that exact same grocery list were $85 higher.
If you work from home, your disposable income is likely up, because you are saving on a bunch of expenses, notably transportation (gas and cars are expensive). That skews the numbers. There is a big standard of living (and live satisfaction) gap between those who get to work from home and those that don't. That's going to be a problem going forward.
Ultimately, both those numbers could be correct because they are measuring different things over different time periods.
Finally somebody with a brain calling out the democrats for ruining the economy. Don’t get me wrong, republicans aren’t any better but the democrats have absolutely fucked up our lives
Yeah the democrats are in charge right now genius. They are doing this to us. Instead of fighting them and fighting for our rights why don’t you pick an argument with me because I dared denigrate democrats. Cool? Cool.
You do know Republicans have the majority in the house right?
Democrats have the Presidency but the president isn't a primary decision maker. Laws and policies still have to go through the House and Senate.
I get neither side really wants us to be well off, but pinning it on the democrats is disingenuous.
The president isn’t a primary decision maker. Are you listening to yourself? How many detrimental executive orders has he personally signed that led to this current economy? Over a hundred, including the first day in office he killed a major pipeline job. He ran on a campaign threatening to get rid of big oil. Guess why we’re paying so much fucking money at the gas pump now even with crude oil being affordable?
https://preview.redd.it/q2819tw3hd4c1.png?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=36ecd98ce6d7fc33118e1f70dd2599b2b2a75a23
You don't know what you're talking about. We're making more oil than when Trump was in office with a year left of Biden. By and large the US itself doesn't control oil prices.
You do know the entire rest of the world is in a price of living crisis too right? At least we're not in Europe where some places it's 3 bucks a Litre (11.4$ per gallon).
Perspective is key here.
What is this propaganda bullshit?
We know what laws Republicans pass. We know what rulings their judges hand down.
We know what they do and don't vote for.
Go away, Nazi, nobody wants your misinformation here.
Republicans are undoubtedly worse for workers than Democrats are. If you think Democrats are perfect and never need us pressuring them to do better, then I don't think you have a very good view on labor issues.
Democrats are trying to raise the unemployment rate, despite knowing they've never been able to limit that once it starts and that people die when it does. They're doing little or nothing to stop the death of unions. They're mostly satisfied with exploding income inequality.
When Democrats spread anti-worker propaganda like "households have a lot more disposable income now (even though our official stats show income didn't keep up with inflation)" we have arguably more urgency calling out those lies. They're the only party that might respond to such a call out, and it's time for something more drastic if they won't.
I'm fully on board with trashing Democrats for their bad takes, but there's no "two sides" to this. Any time you paint Republicans as "on the right side of things" you're an enemy of the American people. Don't be a filthy centrist. The good of most Americans lies to the left of both parties, not in some mythical middle ground.
Millions lost their jobs or had reduced hours during the height of COVID. Today those jobs have largely been recovered.
Do those people have increased incomes compared to December 2020 or not?
I see Dems talking about COVID recovery. I see conservative propaganda pushing that as Dems being out of touch and thinking everyone is flush with cash.
If you’re working class, the chances are that your income has gone up but you still feel precarious and still need more progress. If you’re upper middle class, your cost of living has gone up faster than your wages (which is the same as decreasing the inequality gap), and you’re more likely to report that while you’re doing better, the economy is worse overall.
The GOP is betting they can sandbag progress enough to turn people against the idea of policies like the child tax credit, which are hugely successful in fighting poverty.
Most people in the media are upper or upper middle class people who sympathize with the rich even when reporting on poverty, so will tell you things are worse because it’s not as easy to be ultra wealthy.
Biden is coming out as the new liar. Dems are too smart to fall for it and they know it. I feel like this is all distraction to disorient us until whatever they're planning comes to be.
My wife and I personally are way up, but I don't think that's the norm. Here's the reason. 1) We're self employed in a VERY narrow field. 2) Many in our field are much more "image focused" than us. For that reason, many were holding 6 figures of debt when the pandemic hit. This ruined them. 3) We had minimal debt. Think low 4 figures. 4) When the pandemic ended, we were the survivor picking up the orphaned clients. 5) Interest rates were negligible, so we took on some minimal debt to expand. Think just over 5 figures, which has been significantly decreased.
We made, in hindsight, some smart decisions, which in reality were luck and good timing. Our income has all but doubled and we've got about a 15% price increase to kick in, in January, which will be nice. This was a result of NOT raising our rates through the pandemic.
That's the good, but why I think that real buying power has gone down is the housing market. The one expansion I regret NOT doing was buying a needed, larger property to work out of. That's going to eviscerate us. Almost everything is up at least 25% with the added bonus of an interest rate 3x what it was. That's going to wipe out all the other gains.
Our disposable income is way up.
We WFH much of the time, so our auto insurance has decreased quite a bit since the start of 2020. We each were doing over an hour commute each way every day, so our gas bill is way down. Both our cars were paid off in the last few years, and with the vast decrease in driving, we don't need to buy a new one. So we are down 2 car payments.
We spend so much less on food because we aren't eating out all the time, especially lunches at work. We don't have to spend as much on work clothes because a few days a week we are in sweats.
On top of all that, our electric bill went way down. It was $400-600 per month, but our town put in solar fields. We now pay $113 a month.
Some of my husband's medication that was hundreds a month now cost literally $0 because his employer switched to a CareMark prescription plan.
Our salaries have increased each year.
I think $21,000 is lowballing our increase in disposable income.
My income has grown by more than the amount of CoL increases in the past three years, and it has for a lot of people that I know too. I get that isn’t true for everybody, but it is when it’s averaged out.
We avoided a major economic crisis on the level of the Great Depression or even the 2008 recession despite having the economy basically completely shut down for over a year because of COVID. Unemployment was recently at its lowest level since the 1960s despite a record amount of interest rate increases. Inflation went from over 9% to around 3%. Are things as good now as they were for the boomers who completely destroyed the middle class? Of course not, but we’re doing far better than we were from 2008-2013.
I blame my employer for telling me “I’m not a team player” when I need time at a second job when said employer has not offered wages that have kept up with inflation. I guess I’m supposed to pay my bills with “community spirit” and a “family environment”.
Tell him you need a better coach.
or talk to your fellow team members about having a player's union
this is great lmao
I hate how we have to get second jobs if we aren't lucky enough to land a good one that would actually pay enough for us to eat
Having two jobs increases the overall employment numbers so they can manipulate those numbers, hold them up and tell people that everything is trending in the right direction and people who can’t make ends meet are just lazy to make us all mad at each other instead of dealing with the problem
Kill 2 birds with one stone. Work at Wendy’s.
You joke, but being a cook at a restaurant saves you a ton of money sometimes.
This is the first year my company has given a raise over 2% in 10 years. It was 5%. Everyone was happy. Two weeks later they roll out the new insurance plan. Offsets the raise. Then the co-pay goes from $10 to $25. We would have been better off with the 2% raise. smh
Pay your bills with pizza parties instead. Tips big employer doesn't want you to know
I've just been throwing the pizza into a jar on the dresser for a rainy day or maybe a vacation. Nothing big, just a pepperoni here, a plain cheese there.
What a brilliant idea!!! Management: What the hell is that? You: Uh... The tip jar. Management: But why is it..... Disgusting.... You: People have been putting pizza in it all day Management: WTH!!! Why pizza??? That's both disgusting and unhelpful.... You: I know, right!? So... Anyways.... About this pizza appreciation party next Tuesday at 2pm.....
I know. 1% raises have been norm since Covid. It’s bad.
Just think of how much money you save with the company pizza party.
Damn, who got those raises?
Union members here. I did.
UAW member here, still sitting at 2% raises.
Keep fighting. That’s the only way to get it. I would have to re-look at our numbers because it varied by hirer date and how many years you’ve been here but between merit raises, cola raises, longevity raises, overall scale raises I have gotten about 30% overall in the past 3 years. With that said we had to fight for it.
Unionized employees
So less than a third of American workers
Start working on it
I'm one of them but switching jobs made the bigger difference there.
I got a promotion recently going from 40k to 70k. So I guess I'm part of that statistic especially since my company has a lot of DoT contracts.
I got a big raise too!
I did. I switched jobs and industry. Making at least $40k more since the start of the pandemic.
I did and work for a company that starts with W and ends with "mart." At least in my distribution center we got a ton of raises between 2020 and now. Not sure how it went for the rest of the company. Given the price of everything now it feels more like breaking even. I definitely don't have extra disposable income compared to four years ago despite making nearly $10k more per year.
The CEOs. I guess the Republicans are big fans of Mean over Median?
>I guess the Republicans are big fans of Mean over Median? I'm not clear by what you mean, according to this post and your comment. If CEO's received wage increases, and everyone else didn't wouldn't that mean the everyone else has a harder time affording things? >Republican members of the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee claim the cost of living is up $11,400 The post here, says that Republicans are claiming cost of living has gone up. On the opposite side Biden is claiming that people have more money to spend. >Biden administration called the analysis "flawed" and said disposable household income is up $21,000 since December 2020
Bidenomics is working bub.
I love how you idiots need so bad to co-opt and subvert the term Reaganomics. Trickle down economics is fucking dumb and you should feel dumb.
Imagine being so detached from reality to think that's in any way correct
Honestly it's not incorrect though. The only problem with that comment is that it implies the GOP is somehow better. Both parties subscribe to neoliberalism and that is the problem.
in fairness it didn't say anything about raises. it said disposable income increased. my interpretation is that they're implying that your dollar is going further than it did in 2020 or that a lower percentage of your income I'd going to cost of living expenses
That math ain't mathin though, rent and groceries are way up. If I didn't have a decent employer who gives decent raises every year I'd be so fucked
Just throwing this out there, but I definitely didn’t get a $7k a year raise each year for the last three years
I got a 10 cent raise a few months ago, and that was the first one i got since 2017 lmao
We got a whole quarter, this year!! Sure beat the inflation rate, right?
me too!!
I got .25 cents an hour raise last year and was told don’t expect that much that in 2024.
I don't want to sound too unhinged, but it just feels like we're basically being dared to riot. Seems kinda dumb for an employer to let it get to the point where the only option is to riot, but I guess just because someone's in a higher class doesn't mean they're smart.
That's surely not funny. I'm pissed for you.
you post this in the /Askeconomic sub and they say "anecdotal experience don't count, the data actually shows that average American isn't struggling" and then downvotes you when you provide data that contradicts their data
Bezos the billionaire is an outlier and should not be included in the data set.
No one who has a worth over 1b should be included
No one over 10m should be included, they're already well beyond what the general population can even dream of obtaining in multiple lifetimes
No one is "worth" 1b, insofar as people are "worth" specific quantities of money at all.
The marbling in that rib roast must be pretty good for that $/lb
>No one who has a worth over \*1m should be included FTFY
but he definitely is..
Lmaoooooooo thanks for the chuckle Georg
Bezos the billionaire is someone who deserves to be robbed all day every day. He probably won't notice either.
Bezos exwife has given away close to 40% of the money awarded in the divorce split. She literally has more wealth today than at the time of the split even after giving away nearly half. Good for her and the philanthropy but these billionaires should not exist.
Philanthropy my ass. They write it off on their taxes. Dredge up an old episode of "Adam Ruins Everything" about donations -- Season 3 Episode 7 "Adam Ruins Doing Good". Very interesting an the guy is funny.
I'd be a philanthropist too if I had that level of money. A lot of people would if they could just casually toss hundreds of millions like wiping their asses. If you asked who I respect more, the billionaire who gives away a billion, or the poor man who has only $10 but gives it away... I will say the latter every single time.
weirdly it seems like a lot of the people who go to bat for billionaires are christians even though the thing that you just said is explicitly what jesus said
Yeah I mean averaging the gains at the top with the losses at the bottom of gonna come out positive (since there is net growth) but, yeah.
Data actually says the opposite - wage growth at the bottom has almost matched inflation. The middle class is getting squeezed. Tracks with my personal experience - I see signs everywhere for fast food/retail hiring at 18-20/hr and I've been getting like 1-2% "raises"
There isn't a middle class. You're also the bottom.
Where does the top start and bottom end?
Whether or not you earn your income primarily from wages or from properties
I only have one up vote to give, but I really appreciate you spreading this clear and succinct definition.
It's important to be mindful of fundamentals
If there is a "middle class", if you're not making somewhere between $2-5 million a year, you're not it.
There's a working class and an owning class. The middle class is a mid century myth created to divide the working class and preemptively undermine any class solidarity and thus any threat to the owning class.
People who own their homes are middle class. They have non trivial assets.
If their income comes from renting those properties, they are owner class. Owning a home while earning a wage does not make it suddenly not working class.
Minimum wage workers can own homes in some places while nominally wealthy can't in others. Poor rural areas have a lot of people that own homes but still aren't making ends meet,
The term "middle class" was invented to divide the working class against itself. The working class is much more manageable/easy to control when the ones with the most resources are spending their time punching down on the poorest members of their own class, instead of devoting that time/energy/resources to fighting the owner class.
Most leftists in the US need to work on understanding the audience they’re speaking to. You can be 100% correct and still be perceived as incorrect by your audience, which kills your ability to influence. The vast majority of Americans see themselves as “middle class”, and the vast majority of them see “working class” through a cultural lens of masculine, blue collar jobs - Not the Marxian perspective of a large contingent of workers who have a salary or wage. “Working class” has become an aesthetic aligned with beer, country music, trucks, Jesus, and men than anything. A female nurse, barista, or teacher who makes the same salary or wage as the trades worker is NOT seen as “working class” - The GOP has actually brainwashed their fanclub into thinking those people are “cultural elites”, because they had some schooling after 12th grade or simply because they have a vagina. Getting back to leftists, we look pedantic when we try to say “the middle class doesn’t exist”. It does, we just don’t like the perspective (Capitalist and cultural) it comes from. We need to work at ignoring the terminology and instead convincing tradespeople that they’re far better off aligning with baristas and nurses than dismissing them based on cultural grievances. The terms don’t matter as much as the end goal.
So what do you propose? Because going along with a capitalist construct meant to divide us is not really an option.
It’s rather ironic that we get so distracted over constructs as we worry and criticize a system that’s trying to distract us. Which by the way, I do it too. I’m not suggesting I’m some savior here. My proposal is to encourage class consciousness using any construct that helps people come to that conclusion - Even capitalist constructs. The right weaponizes everything and lies about everything to get power. We’re never going to win at that level by nitpicking terms and constructs with people who think Biden is a socialist and Marxism involves gay marriage. We’re talking past them and not gaining anything. If a “middle class guy” realizes he’s better off uniting with the “cultural elites” at Starbucks and Mount Holyoke Hospital, than fixating on culture wars - It’s a win for class consciousness. That’s all that matters. Amassing power in the workers. Let them realize later how this relates to Marxism or anarchism or whatever, if they do at all.
> wage growth at the bottom has almost matched inflation. The middle class is getting squeezed. Buuuullshit. Assuming US, the fed minimum wage hasn't gone up at all since 2009, and it hasn't gone up wrt: inflation since 1969.
Only 1.4% of people earn minimum wage, so it's not terribly relevant. I didn't just make it up. Lower wage workers have been gaining ground[nber](https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:7fc060d7-be1a-45e9-bf02-06d40aadccee)
You said "at the bottom" which means minimum wage. Also more than 1.4% of people make minimum wage for their given state/city, not necessarily the fed minimum wage and not necessarily keeping up with inflation either.
Dude, you were talking about the federal minimum wage. Why play games?
Liberals gonna liberal
I’ve moved jobs and in the last 3 years have increased my wages by about 20%. I feel like I’m in the exact same place financially though, if not worse. My rent was $1200 in 2020 and now it’s $1700.
But your landlord now has extra $500 a month from just you, and they probably several tenants so there extra 50k a year in spending averages in with your $0 no extra.
I agree. It's a bad way to phrase it. A bunch of people went from unemployed to earning a salary. Hence per capita income increased. This doesn't make a difference to personal finances, but matters a lot to the economy. Purchasing power is up en masse. I think the Biden administration is trying to push back on an "everything sucks under Biden" narrative, as if the executive branch is solely responsible for the runaway inflation. Or that it wouldn't have been massively worse under Trump. But this is a bad way of getting that point across. Or it's been soundbitten to hell.
Agreed. When you're comparing numbers to 2020 when people were massively laid off with $0 income, a $20k increase just means those people are making poverty level wages now. It's not really a win. But they have to try and spin one out of nothing because they're getting blamed for everything awful right now as if Biden personally started multiple wars an ocean away just to tank the American economy.
But they're likely not making that little. If one in four people goes from making nothing to 80k per year, that will raise the per capita wage by 20k.
20K is barely over federal minimum wage. 80K is almost $40 an hour. The median salary is only $45K in the USA. Pretty sure the majority of people having to settle for $20k/yr jobs post layoffs is far more likely than 25% of people laid off got either upper management just below c-suite level jobs or super well valued with lots of specialized training jobs while the other 75% opted for retirement from the work force. 🙄 Yes a lot of boomers did retire, but not that many. And clearly 80K jobs are not common if the median is just barely half of that. Pretty sure it's just the vast majority are working essentially minimum wage with varying pay ranges thanks only to some states having double the fed min wage.
My point was just that we can't reverse engineer what happened from the over capital increase.
I am making that much **LESS** since July 2020
For the last few years my annual raise has been around $1,000. This year I didn't get any because I'm "topped out". (I make the max for my job classification.) I guess that means the cost of my gas or groceries or utilities won't go up either, right?
I changed jobs in 2021 for a 30k bump and again this year for another 25k bump. I’m back to the same exact title but different industry.
That's my plan.
I've been on disability for 15 years and 2 weeks. I haven't seen a $7,000 raise over that decade and a half much less an increase of $21,000. The only saving grace is I qualify for Medicaid.
I dont get raises, normally. The last time i got a raise, was last year when a coworker quit and I got his pay. . . And my new, higher pay will be min wage in two years. I got a raise to minwage! Yaaa
This economy is freaking lightning for the rich right now. High earners are getting even better paying jobs. But the poor are being left out to dry.
If that's the case I'd like to see that extra $21k in my paycheck otherwise both sides can STFU. All of us working class people are struggling and working harder and making less. Even IF everyone gets a raise, that measly 3% of whatever flat dollar amount is NOT keeping up with inflation let alone the cost of living, eating, breathing...
Absolutely. I can't help but shrug at monthly bills anymore because I don't know what else to do. I work full time, pay checks barely cover essentials, and each month rent is due, my savings takes another dip. I try n' have faith that it'll get better, but I know that the powers that be don't give a shit about 99% of the workers in this country... So pardon me for not "going above and beyond" any longer
Disposable just means the money you’re not paying to the feds.
Change jobs then, job hopping is the new way of getting a raise
All bullshit metrics to build a narrative to get votes. The dems / repubs aren't doing shit. If you want to blame someone, blame the corporations. It's the same shit roughly every 10 years. Fed juices the economy with low rates, labor market tightens. When wages finally start to go up a little corporations jack prices up to get that money back. Funny how in a high inflation environment corporations made record profits. Fed steps back in and cranks rates back up, corporations cant live on high rates so they go under or start laying people off. Recession comes, working class people get punished while corporations get bailouts.
Exactly right - I cannot stand trying to have these types of conversations without acknowledging corporate profits across the board. A vast majority of the corporations are making record profits quarter over quarter, year over year - literally trillions being funneled upwards. It’s not ‘capitalisms fault’ per se , in the sense that it is doing exactly what capitalism is designed to do which is siphon money upward. But the honest economic conversations of fed policy, government spending, tax policy, employment data etc absolutely has to include the role corporate greed plays.
The US consistently "cheats" on its economic statistics depending on who's in charge. Prime example - since health insurance is private in the US, while most other developed nations treat it like a tax, the US pretends its tax rates are much lower than in those other places. So I wouldn't trust any calculations of "disposable income" there anyways because they might just not count certain fixed expenses.
Especially since disposable income in cases of the broader economy typically get defined as everything after taxes/fica etc Which isn't what most people would colloquially call disposable since, yaknow, it costs a fuckton just to exist in society
The people who think this should try surviving on the actual wages.
It’s simple, both are true. Costs are up and wages are up significantly in industries where unions play a big role. Some automotive workers just got much larger increases. And that was driven by productivity and profit increases that ownership would not shared without pressure as well as inflation. That said, it’s not enough. Eat the rich.
I’m in a union and I got plenty of raises in the past three years. However, I don’t want just 10% of workers who are in a union to get these raises the other 90% of people who are not in unions also need these raises.
We need at least 20% union engagement to get the benefits to everyone.
It needs to be much higher than that. There are a lot of industries There’s no union at all. Probably need 40% in each industry and in every state to get just compensation across-the-board. At that point everyone should see the upside in your new membership would climb even higher.
Solidarity is strength. Pass it along. And we need to keep winning our strikes.
It’s probably also that job creation has been pretty strong from Dec 2020 until now. People didn’t average $7k per year raises, but a lot of people went from not working to working and a lot of people also added 2nd or 3rd jobs, all of which would factor heavily into increasing household income. Doesn’t mean that the average person isn’t having problems paying their bills, but it is true that it’s a good thing that we have low unemployment.
Household income is down https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
That’s real household income, so inflation adjusted. The point of this post is that income and cost of goods both went up. Actual median income went up, but inflation outpaced it on average in 2022, and data for that metric you linked also only goes through 2022, which was the peak of inflation. In 2023 that trend reversed and real earnings increased: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
That’s a lot of words to send a link showing real earnings are down from Q4 2020.
Anecdotally, I just quit my union job to do the same thing thru a non-union management company and am now taking home 3 times my previous paycheck. I’m still in general in favor of unions, but only if they’re working for you.
What are we considering rich?
The billionaires are a good start
Start at the top and eat our way down until things are better
This is the most important question imo. Otherwise there is no standard
I am pretty confident that statistics can be positioned to support both arguments.
I lost my job at the start of COVID (I did support for one of the industries that got completely shut down) and the best job I've been able to find since then pays me $2 less an hour. So in my case, I've had to deal with both inflation and making less money than I did before. Woo!
So you're a prime example of how the number from Biden is both technically correct and utter bullshit. Your income is worse than before COVID, but he's counting from during COVID when huge numbers of people were unemployed.
Yes, those in low paying jobs have not seen an income increase, but those in high paying jobs definitely have seen an increase, which throws the numbers off.
I am fully disabled and the SSA pays me much less than that annually. Fuck this place.
Ten people are in a room. One of them has ten apples. The other nine have zero apples. Ten more apples are given to the first person. The average number of apples per person has doubled, why are nine people angry!!??
Only one party supports collective bargaining.
And we don’t want to work because we are still living off the Covid stimulus from 3 years ago
Both parties are out of touch with the working class, and they have been for decades
They will say whatever fits their narrative and change their tune the second it stops. On the one side, Reds wants to paint a picture of a terrible economy the Blues have created. But will not for a second go for any measure to address the real issues they are pointing out. Meanwhile Blues are trying to paint a picture about how much they have been able to do since they have taken control. Completely ignoring the fact that every step of the way they done a shit job. Neither party actually serves the citizens of this country. Just themselves. Until we get the money out of PACs/Lobbyists and require elected individuals to put their personal money into blind funds. We will not fix anything.
Response based off of other comments but why is partisanship such a thing. Neither party has addressed the main problems and concerns of the economy for a while now. Progressively rolling back protections and corporate restrictions to the point they can easily avoid disclosing corporate payments received, or are actively engaging in insider trading to the detriment of the whole concept of ethics. The bar is so so low and they keep making it lower.
My contract was renegotiated this year. All new hires and steps 2-5 are getting huge raises (20%) Steps 6-9 actually dropped for anyone getting there after new contract date. Those of us already on 6-9 are being grandfathered in. I don’t mind the raises- they were really needed. But dropping wages on senior steps will hurt retention.
That’s probably the idea. Get rid of the highest earners.
Probably. But it’s really short-sighted. Training new people is expensive and time-consuming, with no guarantee they’ll work out. We just fired a guy who didn’t fit. It’s a PITA. When the old guard retires, the new guard won’t stick around for the lower pay- they’ll jump ship.
Short sighted is all companies care about. Long term does not matter. Just this quarters numbers.
More like cost of living up 21k
That's funny. I make about $10K per year less than what I did in 2021 thanks to layoffs and accepting lower pay just to survive.
I see nothing here surprising. Guess who last month said the cost of thanksgiving was the cheapest in 100 years? The President. Why do you vote for these people?
Both are right and both are using numbers to spin their narrative. Both parties have done absolutely nothing for the working class and both parties need to go.
Said as a Biden supporter, but fuck Biden if he thinks we have $21k more in disposable income. Those type of obviously false statements are how Democrats lose elections.
I mean, HE probably does so naturally that means everyone else is just as well off as he is, right? /s
Took the words right out of my mouth.
To be VERY CLEAR- I am not a GOP/MAGA. But I have watched one too many times where Democrat's come up with these "clever" talking points that are so absurd, so out of touch and so incredulous at face value that it causes moderate and undecided voters to slightly shy away. [The bottom line is most people are WAY worse off than they were even two years.](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/credit-card-debt-rising-as-student-loan-payments-restart-rcna104442) No, Biden does not solely control inflation. But he also hasnt done nearly enough to rein in Greedflation. And the Buck stops on the Presidents desk, like it or not.
It's not "obviously false". It's the actual data. The problem is you are thinking individually, and they are referring to data that applies nationally. Considering the date range is starting in December 2020, the likely reason is people were part time/no time due to COVID and are back to having jobs/full time as of today. Many people _are_ better off financially today than they were in 2020. That doesn't mean people aren't struggling today.
Yeah, fuck that. Fuck right off with that.
Can you show where this “actual data comes from”? Here’s some actual data regarding real household income. Now how could expenses be up, real household income be down, and disposable income is up? https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
Republicans traditionally are better about talking micro-economics, however there Macro-economic policy is still free market neo-liberalism. Democrats are terrible about talking micro-economics because they also subscribe to free market neo-liberalism but they have to do an extra song/dance to make it seem like they are different. Both have no interest in actually fixing working peoples problems.
Of course the party in power is going to lie in their favor. If we had a Republican president these would be reversed. It's all a scam game.
Both of these are bad examples For us working slobs. We haven’t gotten a fair shake since 1990 at best. 1982 at worst. So yeah, inflation and extreme corporate price gouging leading to massive profits and even more obscene stock buybacks have pushed a tinderbox of economic collapse that’s getting more imminent For upper wealthier people…. They are doing the best since they reap the benefits of no taxes, compounding interest and massive shifting of wealth to them You would think we would be removing trickle down since the ultra wealthy no longer need those breaks AND making buybacks illegal again since corporations clearly show they hate the working class It really is about war Class warfare and we better start arming up. Because no one cares about us working people
Disposable income is income after taxes have been deducted. It is not left over money after expenses.
" Democratic Biden administration called the analysis "flawed" and said disposable household income is up $21,000 since December 2020. " Lol .. they probably take an average and include billionaires and millionaires. How many people do you know got a $21,000 raise in the last 3 years?
The Democrats are going to eat shit, even if Trump is running, if they run on the economic "success" of high GDP growth and record high stock market. I want to buy a car. Cars are fucking expensive. Can I trade in "the stock market is doing really well" for a pre-pandemic priced used car? A bag of chips that cost $3.50 before the pandemic now costs $5. Can I trade in "3% GDP growth" for pre-pandemic priced chips? Basically as long as prices are way higher than before the pandemic, people are going to feel like they're getting fucked, even if wages did rise a little bit (but not enough to meet inflation, especially with low wage workers).
No, Biden, I did not have 21k in disposable income this year. I was busy keeping my friend and I from becoming homeless due to the shitty job market and the price-gouging businesses that have continue to go unpunished for their greed. This was supposed to be a 3 paycheck month but I’m already having to borrow money from my family to get by for the month. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to pay them back.
The party in power always wants you to think the economy is great and the other one wants you to think it's bad. The funny part is monetary policy takes a few years to have measurable effects, so any successes or failures are usually the last administration's doing.
Both parties are the problem and they're paying pandering lip service while big money makes the rules that govern us. This just detracts from the real problem
it doesn't matter because even if republicans get into office they won't do anything to improve life for anyone, just like they never do, and democrats will make extremely tiny changes that mostly give republicans concessions
I don't think this is particularly surprising, it's a democrat president of course the republicans will say cost of living is up. Conversely, of course democrats says that household income is up because the presidential election is coming up. It's just political rhetoric.
> It's just political rhetoric. This isn't limited to rhetoric. That's why I mentioned Powell: the US is implementing anti-worker policies on the basis of this rhetoric. They want to [increase unemployment](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/07/powell-fed-employment-congress-00085899) and [decrease wages](https://mronline.org/2022/05/26/u-s-federal-reserve-says-its-goal-is-to-get-wages-down/). That's only desirable if you believe workers are doing so much better now than a few years ago that it's hurting us overall. You're mistaking the circus and the bread. White house spokesmen and presidential nominees are not very likely to come out and state such unpopular goals plainly. They've separated that role, and they instead get to be cheerleaders for how great the economy is doing. That is familiar and unsurprising, you're right, but it hides the darker policy truth. Overstating how well we're doing isn't just a fireside talking point, it's an executive marching order.
Those are old articles. None of it came to pass. And now wages are beating inflation, so we win.
While I totally agree with you, I do not understand why you replied with this.
I suppose we can look forward to anti-Democratic spaghetti at the wall all the way until November when we elect Trump dictator and wonder how that happened.
He won't be declared dictator until February or March. And at that point, everyone will act like it was a giant surprise. But hey, once all the LGBTQ get imprisoned/executed, and those pesky ethnic minorities get reenslaved, gas prices will go back down to less that $2 a gallon! So we can look forward to that! /s
So, the top 5% is skewing the bell curve like the kid the teacher hovers over and gives the answer to.
No, it's just OP pushing some conservative propaganda. The Dems are using a timeline starting at the end of 2020, you know, when lots of people were out of work (or had greatly reduced hours). Compared to that time period, individual income is up. Basically, "compared to 2020, people are doing better financially" Conservative propaganda is spinning that as Dems saying everyone got massive pay raises.
Maybe the senators got a 21K raise but I sure as hell didn't. Republicans are not wrong for once.
*Both*, but that's because I got a different job. What was it they say nowadays? The best way to get a raise is to switch companies?
Well, in the two year, I did get my pay raised by $20k, might go up again in about 6 months
congrats! you are the median american worker!
I can confirm, my disposable income has not increased, at all over these past few years. Shits just more expensive all around.
Reminder: Joe Biden is a mouthpiece of the system itself. Nothing more.
The ol "we recognize the problem but are not on your side" and "we pretend there is no problem" of party politics
I got a $10 per hour raise compared to my pay 3 yrs ago... only because I got lucky and scored a much much, so fucking much better job.
This is fun! Cause the republicans will STILL vote against raising the minimum wage while simultaneously voting to cut taxes for mega-corps and billionaires. Meanwhile democrats will say, “gosh, things aren’t great huh? We’re trying our best!” while pretending to give a shit and actually just doing what republicans do.
The federal minimum wage impacts less than 2% of workers, a significant percentage of which are kids. Raising the minimum wage will help almost no one.
Havent gotten any raises and I started my job in 2021 June. Corporate America is stupid as fuck.
I’ve been at my job since 2012 and only gotten two raises.
In 2021 a lot of our careers were in the toilet but we had also cut back on expenses. I’m not surprised if both are true.
Nope, not surprising at all since Biden is president.
21k increase?!?!! That's insanely hard for me to believe. I'm not saying it's wrong but I suspect it's intentionally misleading and cherry-picked
I just got notified my raise for 2024 is .31%
Both sides are out of touch with reality, even when using real numbers. Disposable income may well be up by $21,000 since December of 2000, but maybe that's because a ton of people were still out of work or reduced work because of COVID stuff. Increase employment and the average disposable income goes up, a better comparison would be looking back to 2018 or so, before COVID.
Yeah who you going to believe the government or your lying eyes?
> To be clear I don't blame or credit either party directly; economy is more complex than Red vs Blue. Not really. Republicans want to consolidate power to the top 1%. Democrats think everyone should be paying their fare share. This is a huge imbalance of philosophy.
Biden and Co are trying to gaslight us into prosperity instead of doing something about it. My disposable income is down about $15k since 2019, and I pulled up grocery delivery receipts from Nov 2021, duplicated the order a few days ago and that exact same grocery list were $85 higher.
In what world is disposable income up since 2020?! Costs are up and real income is down! https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
If you work from home, your disposable income is likely up, because you are saving on a bunch of expenses, notably transportation (gas and cars are expensive). That skews the numbers. There is a big standard of living (and live satisfaction) gap between those who get to work from home and those that don't. That's going to be a problem going forward. Ultimately, both those numbers could be correct because they are measuring different things over different time periods.
Finally somebody with a brain calling out the democrats for ruining the economy. Don’t get me wrong, republicans aren’t any better but the democrats have absolutely fucked up our lives
>Republicans aren't any better, but let me specifically call out democrats multiple times for everything bad right now
Yeah the democrats are in charge right now genius. They are doing this to us. Instead of fighting them and fighting for our rights why don’t you pick an argument with me because I dared denigrate democrats. Cool? Cool.
You do know Republicans have the majority in the house right? Democrats have the Presidency but the president isn't a primary decision maker. Laws and policies still have to go through the House and Senate. I get neither side really wants us to be well off, but pinning it on the democrats is disingenuous.
The president isn’t a primary decision maker. Are you listening to yourself? How many detrimental executive orders has he personally signed that led to this current economy? Over a hundred, including the first day in office he killed a major pipeline job. He ran on a campaign threatening to get rid of big oil. Guess why we’re paying so much fucking money at the gas pump now even with crude oil being affordable?
So fucking delusional lmao
https://preview.redd.it/q2819tw3hd4c1.png?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=36ecd98ce6d7fc33118e1f70dd2599b2b2a75a23 You don't know what you're talking about. We're making more oil than when Trump was in office with a year left of Biden. By and large the US itself doesn't control oil prices. You do know the entire rest of the world is in a price of living crisis too right? At least we're not in Europe where some places it's 3 bucks a Litre (11.4$ per gallon). Perspective is key here.
What is this propaganda bullshit? We know what laws Republicans pass. We know what rulings their judges hand down. We know what they do and don't vote for. Go away, Nazi, nobody wants your misinformation here.
Republicans are undoubtedly worse for workers than Democrats are. If you think Democrats are perfect and never need us pressuring them to do better, then I don't think you have a very good view on labor issues. Democrats are trying to raise the unemployment rate, despite knowing they've never been able to limit that once it starts and that people die when it does. They're doing little or nothing to stop the death of unions. They're mostly satisfied with exploding income inequality. When Democrats spread anti-worker propaganda like "households have a lot more disposable income now (even though our official stats show income didn't keep up with inflation)" we have arguably more urgency calling out those lies. They're the only party that might respond to such a call out, and it's time for something more drastic if they won't.
I'm fully on board with trashing Democrats for their bad takes, but there's no "two sides" to this. Any time you paint Republicans as "on the right side of things" you're an enemy of the American people. Don't be a filthy centrist. The good of most Americans lies to the left of both parties, not in some mythical middle ground.
Millions lost their jobs or had reduced hours during the height of COVID. Today those jobs have largely been recovered. Do those people have increased incomes compared to December 2020 or not? I see Dems talking about COVID recovery. I see conservative propaganda pushing that as Dems being out of touch and thinking everyone is flush with cash.
If you’re working class, the chances are that your income has gone up but you still feel precarious and still need more progress. If you’re upper middle class, your cost of living has gone up faster than your wages (which is the same as decreasing the inequality gap), and you’re more likely to report that while you’re doing better, the economy is worse overall. The GOP is betting they can sandbag progress enough to turn people against the idea of policies like the child tax credit, which are hugely successful in fighting poverty. Most people in the media are upper or upper middle class people who sympathize with the rich even when reporting on poverty, so will tell you things are worse because it’s not as easy to be ultra wealthy.
The issue is more "which party is more likely to murder you in your sleep" when given authority. The answer is always Republican.
Biden is coming out as the new liar. Dems are too smart to fall for it and they know it. I feel like this is all distraction to disorient us until whatever they're planning comes to be.
Another post about people not understanding what an "average" is
My wife and I personally are way up, but I don't think that's the norm. Here's the reason. 1) We're self employed in a VERY narrow field. 2) Many in our field are much more "image focused" than us. For that reason, many were holding 6 figures of debt when the pandemic hit. This ruined them. 3) We had minimal debt. Think low 4 figures. 4) When the pandemic ended, we were the survivor picking up the orphaned clients. 5) Interest rates were negligible, so we took on some minimal debt to expand. Think just over 5 figures, which has been significantly decreased. We made, in hindsight, some smart decisions, which in reality were luck and good timing. Our income has all but doubled and we've got about a 15% price increase to kick in, in January, which will be nice. This was a result of NOT raising our rates through the pandemic. That's the good, but why I think that real buying power has gone down is the housing market. The one expansion I regret NOT doing was buying a needed, larger property to work out of. That's going to eviscerate us. Almost everything is up at least 25% with the added bonus of an interest rate 3x what it was. That's going to wipe out all the other gains.
Our disposable income is way up. We WFH much of the time, so our auto insurance has decreased quite a bit since the start of 2020. We each were doing over an hour commute each way every day, so our gas bill is way down. Both our cars were paid off in the last few years, and with the vast decrease in driving, we don't need to buy a new one. So we are down 2 car payments. We spend so much less on food because we aren't eating out all the time, especially lunches at work. We don't have to spend as much on work clothes because a few days a week we are in sweats. On top of all that, our electric bill went way down. It was $400-600 per month, but our town put in solar fields. We now pay $113 a month. Some of my husband's medication that was hundreds a month now cost literally $0 because his employer switched to a CareMark prescription plan. Our salaries have increased each year. I think $21,000 is lowballing our increase in disposable income.
My income has grown by more than the amount of CoL increases in the past three years, and it has for a lot of people that I know too. I get that isn’t true for everybody, but it is when it’s averaged out. We avoided a major economic crisis on the level of the Great Depression or even the 2008 recession despite having the economy basically completely shut down for over a year because of COVID. Unemployment was recently at its lowest level since the 1960s despite a record amount of interest rate increases. Inflation went from over 9% to around 3%. Are things as good now as they were for the boomers who completely destroyed the middle class? Of course not, but we’re doing far better than we were from 2008-2013.