Trumps accomplishments

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In Capitalism, people at the bottom have to be squeezed so people closer to the top can have easy, cushy, super-high paying jobs. However, the hope is you're the next ....

... Horatio Alger story
... Lottery winner
... mail room clerk that climbs the corporate ladder to become CEO

No one is generally poorer than they were 50 years ago. This is real income not nominal income. What is true is the very poorest have stayed at the same level of poor. While those at the higher scale have experienced more of a gain. The "shrinking" middle class is because more people have moved to the "upper class."

What has happened is certain costs have increased at far greater than inflation. This includes housing, healthcare, and college. This creates the perception that people are worse off today because these cost more, but this is not reality, because everything else costs less.

Skyrocketing housing costs have nothing to do with labor rights. They have with housing increases not matching population increases. Skyrocketing college costs have nothing to do with labor rights. They have to do with complicated factors including government subsidies, increased pressure to provide college to poor students, and increased demand for college education. Skyrocketing healthcare costs also has complicated factors at stake none of which is driven by labor rights.

That union factory job might not exist anymore, but statistically speaking there is a better paying job in its place now.

The better paying job often is not be filled in part because companies don’t pay to train people in new technologies like they did once upon a time. You are expected to get up to speed immediately. That means the union factory worker is now part of the permanent underclass. Republicans always believed there are winners and losers in the world. Government help if it should be given out should be given out to veterans, people that lost everything to a tornado etc. What has changed is when the unemployed factory worker looks a the popular media often they find they are belittled as privileged, out of touch, uncouth, sexist, racists etc. Their habits such as shopping at Walmart is made fun of. That is one reason Trump won. Another words your situation is your fault, suck it up and get out the way. Not all that different then the Republicans. The Russian trolls only took advantage of the situation. This will be a factor in Trump possibly winning again.

I think this chart misses some big criteria.

1. Like, 50 years ago, many moms stayed at home and raised their kids, so the household income was from one person. Now both mom and dad have to work just to equal the same household income.

2. Likely, today, more people work multiple jobs to maintain the same household income.

3. Likely, 50 years ago, a man at age 18 could go get a factory job and support a family. Now that same man is 27 and still living with his parents. (That hides that his "household income" is zero, and he can't actually get a house).

4. In my area, it was common for people to own a vacation home as well. Today, I think this is being reduced.

First of all, an apology to Crimadella whose thread on Trump's accomplishments I seemed to have hijacked into an economics debate.

LoveNotHate brought up some good points that I want to address, but we should probably collectively get back on topic.

1. It is definitely true that the number of earners per household has increased, but the number of earners per household is also predictive of quintile placement. Source: https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/u ... p-data.htm

The top 20% average 2 earners per household. The bottom 20% average 0.5 earners per household. The second lowest quintile averages 0.8 earners per household, while the middle quintile averages 1.3 earners per household, and the 4th quintile averages 1.8 earners per household. In summary if you have two earners in your household you are very likely in the groups that have seen the most gains over the last 50 years. The only group that is flat over that time period (the lowest income bracket) has barely any households with 2 earners and many with 0 earners.

Personal real income has also dramatically increased over the last 50 years, but I haven't found a break down by quintile so this could easily be skewed by earners at the top.

2. It may be people are working more jobs. This is a fair criticism, but I haven't seen much data on it.

3. True a high school education doesn't get you as far as it used to, and those union factory jobs are increasingly short supply. However, jobs are constantly degraded by progress and new jobs are created. Again real income has increased or remained flat for all income brackets so on average the jobs being created are better than the ones being destroyed. Romanticizing past jobs is poor economic policy.

4. As I mentioned before people cannot afford housing as much as they used to. This is because housing prices increases have greatly outstripped inflation and purchasing power. However, since purchasing power has increased over time, for this to be true, most of everything else has gotten cheaper.

People saying that the U.S. economy and people's economic circumstances have not generally gotten better based on anecdotal stories without looking at the data are the economic equivalent of the climate change folks who say "Global Warming isn't real because we had a snowstorm last week."

It just was tweaked to take care of those fines.



I've never understood why people attribute their own words to me. Like, "Wait a minute...are you seriously saying the world is really secretly run by mice?!"

I don't care what your charts and graphs say, working families were better off when I was a kid than they are today. And that's not just my opinion, that's the experience of all my friends. All your sources have accomplished is to ignore people who have been left behind.
Skyrocketing education and housing has everything to do with labor rights. At one time, a unionized blue collared laborer could buy a home and send his or her kids to college. Now that wages are stagnant, those things are becoming out of reach. Throw in disappearing medical and dental benefits, and you have workers seeing their money going to those things, taking away money that would have otherwise gone to a middle class lifestyle that includes buying a home and sending the kids to college.
What better jobs are replacing factory jobs?

No, Trump is trying to destroy Obamacare, not fix it. And not out of concern for people being fined, but because he wants to erase Obama's legacy.
I'm referring to your last sentence. If not business, who were you referring to?

I'm sorry if my facts offended you. Here in the midwest we had a snow storm last week. Earlier this year we had a record cold. Guess climate change is false, based on my personal experience. Or maybe my personal experience has nothing to do with the mean temperature of the planet.

Average increases mean that on average people are doing better. Some are doing worse, some are doing a lot better, some are doing only a little bit better. Your particular economic area might not be doing so well. That doesn't mean on average americans aren't doing better.

The people who "were left behind" weren't ignored. They were included, it's just their losses were less than the gains made by the people who made gains.

Also on the topic of housing, and college you can't just raise union wages to pay for something that is dramatically outpacing economic growth and inflation combined. For that you need to analyze the issues and address what is driving up the cost.

My dad had had a saying: "figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure." Apparently that applies to graphs, too.

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Are statistics and people who present statistics entirely trustworthy, no? But that doesn't mean we should automatically ignore data when it clashes with our world view. Questioning is fine, outright dismissing it is unwise. Too many people have a habit of listening to facts when they support their world view and ignoring them when they clash with it. Applies across the political spectrum, and I know I'm not immune.

My last sentence was a reply to your question "What is it with you conservatives thinking taxation is theft?"

My answer to that question was; Making obamacare mandatory and then fining hard working non-welfare poor people hundreds of dollars for not being able to afford it should be considered theft by most anyone.

You would too if you had to fork out hundreds in fines instead of getting a nice subsidy.

They could have always taken the ACA.

That being the case, have you considered that the so called facts behind your graphs are fraudulent?

I'm sure they would have if they could have afforded it.

That was the point. People being fined hundreds to thousands because they could not afford non-subsidized obamacare premiums.

While the fines were high, it's still a lot less than obamacare would cost them for coverage that wouldn't go into effect until they paid up to $10,000 out of pocket first.

Obamacare is great for those on welfare and those who already have astronomically high medical bills. But not so great for millions of others.

Admittedly, we should just have gone straight to single payer, as much as the right thinks that's the doorway to Hell.