I thought we were in the best economy ever?

[GodLovesCats]

Red herrings are ocean fish - nothing more, nothing less.

If minimum wage is not supposed to be a living wage, how is everybody supposed to earn a living wage with only one job?

RJ, did you know Trump made getting food stamps harder? Fewer poor people now are able to get them because of tighter restrictions. Sorry, I am not buying that as a sign of improvement.

 

[iluvatar5150]

The minimum wage isnt supposed to be a living wage.

Says who?

It's for entry level type jobs requiring low skills for a temporary time for the majority of workers who take those jobs.

What evidence do you have that these jobs are intended to be temporary?

Only about 2% of hourly workers earn minimum wage.

*That's the federal minimum. Many states have minimums that are higher. I don't have the numbers, but it would stand to reason that the numbers working at the state minimums would be quite a bit higher.

One fifth of hourly wage workers are under 25 yoa. Of those teens make up the majority of minimum wage workers.
Only about 1% of workers over 25 earn minimum wage.

The stat you left out is that half of minimum wage workers are over 25.

 

[gaara4158]

The minimum wage isnt supposed to be a living wage. It's for entry level type jobs requiring low skills for a temporary time for the majority of workers who take those jobs.

I don’t know who’s been spreading this myth around, but it seems to have invaded every political space I frequent. Let me put it to rest here, once and for all. Minimum wage was championed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, known for his successful economic reforms and who was elected for four terms before dying in office, rated third best president in American history by experts behind only Lincoln and Washington. From his own mouth: “It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”

 

[iluvatar5150]

However his administration presided over an overall economy that was incredibly weak and anemic. The income growth for Americans was abysmal. American median Income grew 1.6% while under Trump it's increases 6.8%.

Uh, no.

Real Median Household Income in the United States
Median Household Income in the United States

Even using the real / inflation-adjusted numbers that skew in favor of Trump, you still don't get that. Eyeballing it, it looks like you compared the Obama's average annualized growth rate to Trump's cumulative growth.

But let's do some math:

Using the years 2009, 2017, and 2018 as the start & end times of the respective administrations (2019 data isn't available yet and even this isn't fair to Obama since he didn't take office until almost Q2 2009), then according to those charts:

On the real income, Obama went from 58,400 to 62,626 over 8 years and Trump went from 62,626 to 63,179 over 1 year. (again, 2019 isn't available yet) If you plug those numbers into Investopedia's compound annual growth rate calculator, you'll see that Obama's annualized growth rate was 0.88% and that Trump's annualized growth rate is, coincidentally, also 0.88%.

And that's even accounting for the fact that the recession caused incomes to fall during Obama's first few years in office. If we start at 2012 when things started to rebound, the average annual growth of real wages over Obama's last 5 years in office was 2.33%.

And due to the lousy wages Obama had record numbers of people on food stamps.

You mean that once-in-a-lifetime global recession he inherited?

So overall we see who has really helped Americans.

Yeah, we do. Except, you got your math wrong, so you credited it to the wrong guy.

ETA: To harp on this a bit more, do none of you guys ever bother to google any of these charts before making these claims? If so, do you know how to read them? This is barely middle-school level math and you guys are virtually always wrong about it. All of this propaganda you guys keep repeating about Trump's magical economic turnaround just isn't true. The facts are right there, just a few keystrokes away and none of you bother to look at them.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The reason is because the "economy is doing great" talking point has been centered around a very misguided and narrow approach of economic assessment...which is to exclusively focus on the two metrics; unemployment rates and stock values...and practically ignoring every other metric.

Here are two scenarios with a hypothetical country with 100 people (just to keep the math simple)...

Scenario A)
1 person makes $1 million per year
4 make $200k per year
10 make $100k per year
40 make $75k per year
30 make $40k per year
10 make $15k per year (min wage)
5 are unemployed

Scenario B)
1 person makes $2 million per year
2 make $250k per year
2 make $100k per year
30 make $60k per year
20 make $40k per year
20 make $30k per year
5 make $20k per year
17 make $15k per year
3 are unemployed

Even though Scenario B has a 2% lower unemployment rate, and can produce higher stock values (due to companies reaping more profit from paying a larger number of workers less), Scenario A represents a healthier economy with regards to what's going to stimulate commerce.

With regards to economic stimulation, an overall wealth concentration of middle-out is always going to be preferable to top-down.

 

[carl_b_me]

It is never their own fault if they are unable to work at the places nearby that are hiring. If someone is able to do a job that is available near home, great, and it is a blessing. But only evil people can blame poor adults who want living wage jobs and cannot get them for a variety of reasons outside their control.

Are you calling my political philosophy of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" evil? Because if that's evil then it's the good kinda evil. Look at how it worked for Donald Trump! A self-made billionaire who works hard for his position and his wealth. I want THAT for all people in the US. No one just "hands" you a million dollars!

Also, if an employer is hiring for a part-time position but has no full-time jobs available, does it really count as good for the employee or just better than nothing? I vote for the latter.

If people want to work part time they should be allowed to. If they want more money, they have to work more. Look at most corporate CEO's these guys work long hours and they work hard. Harder than any of the "employees" of the company...but do you seem them whining about not getting enough money? Nope. They know that at the end of the day they work for the shareholders and they work HARD. HARD.

Again, look at Donald Trump. You don't build up things like Trump Tower, Trump Airlines, Trump University, Donald J. Trump Foundation and the Trump Taj Mahal Casino without HARD WORK. If people want to be rich like Donald Trump the path is straight and leads right through the heart of "Hard Work Town".

 

[GodLovesCats]

I am still waiting for conservatives to prove all Americans with full-time jobs earn a living wage. Until that happens, the economy does not deserve to be called "the best ever."

 

[carl_b_me]

I am still waiting for conservatives to prove all Americans with full-time jobs earn a living wage. Until that happens, the economy does not deserve to be called "the best ever."

Whatever they agreed to work for is, by definition, the wage they earn. If a company is savvy enough to low-ball someone then it's on the worker. LOL. Workers need to bargain better. That's why I think everyone should read Art of the Deal by The PResident of the United States of America.

 

[GodLovesCats]

Workers don't agree to low salaries because they want that little money. They want to be paid more but a living wage job does not exist. That is never the worker's fault. Workers can't bargain hourly pay. They're only able to accept what is given to them. So the government needs to make sure all workers get a living wage job, not live from paycheck to paycheck with no money to spare.

 

[carl_b_me]

Workers don't agree to low salaries because they want that little money.

Hmmm, that doesn't sound right. Why would people wind up making too little money for their work? That just doesn't make any sense.

They want to be paid more but a living wage job does not exist.

Then they need to give up some stuff. The business owners made those jobs for them, the least the worker can do is NOT complain about getting paid too little. The employer can always take the jobs away.

That is never the worker's fault. Workers can't bargain hourly pay. They're only able to accept what is given to them.

that's probably true for people who lack drive. I bet Donald J. Trump never worked at McDonalds for minimum wage. He would have demanded a pay rate that was better than that!

So the government needs to make sure all workers get a living wage job, not live from paycheck to paycheck with no money to spare.

The ONLY job of the government is to make sure corporations pay their shareholders. Beyond that the marketplace takes care of it. If Americans want these jobs they have to accept that they are in competition for the jobs with people in China and Indonesia.

 

[GodLovesCats]

Carl, did you even think about what I wrote before clicking the reply button? You post makes no sense. If you ever had an entry level job like working at McDonald's you would know what I am talking about.

 

[Ken-1122]

21. (22 if we include Puerto Rico, although it isn't a state)

2020 Minimum Wage Rates by State

Exactly! Less than half the states have a minimum wage below $8 per hr, and those places that do are usually down south or in other areas where life expenses are incredibly cheap; places where you can still get a pretty good house for less than $100,000
6 Homes for Sale Under $100K on Trulia - Life at Home - Trulia Blog

 

[TLK Valentine]

Exactly! Less than half the states have a minimum wage below $8 per hr, and those places that do are usually down south or in other areas where life expenses are incredibly cheap; places where you can still get a pretty good house for less than $100,000
6 Homes for Sale Under $100K on Trulia - Life at Home - Trulia Blog

Sometimes you get what you pay for. The Deep South & Florida panhandle? I spent a month there one afternoon.

 

[Allandavid]

Under Obama we came out of one of the worse recessions since the Great Depression, so we went from record lows to a reasonable high. Under Trump we went from a reasonable high to a record high.

As far as trump claiming he created jobs or raised wages, of course he is going to say that; that’s the type of person he is. Politicians don’t raise wages or create jobs, the private sector does that. The only thing a politician can do is get government out of the way and allow the Private sector do it’s job; and that is all Trump did; he got rid of regulations and lowered taxes; much of the regulations and taxes he got rid of were those Obama put in place that was strangling the economy, So if he wants to take credit for something it should be for getting the government out of the way to allow business to create jobs and raise wages, he shouldn’t be trying to take credit for actually creating jobs IMO.

“Strangling the economy”...??

Wow. Perhaps you could show me a graph of ANY of the major economic indicators and show me the point where that ‘strangulation’ was eased...?

Because, in most cases, all I see is a continuation of the trends commenced during Obama’s tenure. In fact, several of those trends have eased under Trump...

 

[Belk]

The minimum wage isnt supposed to be a living wage. It's for entry level type jobs requiring low skills for a temporary time for the majority of workers who take those jobs.

Only about 2% of hourly workers earn minimum wage.
One fifth of hourly wage workers are under 25 yoa. Of those teens make up the majority of minimum wage workers.
Only about 1% of workers over 25 earn minimum wage.

So it's a red hearing to hint that so many people are having to live on minimum wage. It's just not true.

According to whom

 

[GodLovesCats]

Exactly! Less than half the states have a minimum wage below $8 per hr, and those places that do are usually down south or in other areas where life expenses are incredibly cheap; places where you can still get a pretty good house for less than $100,000.

Are you thinking about Mississippi? Ugh, that state has terrible infrastructure, at least where my sister is, and no recycling. There is not much to do outside the very few relatively big cities. It is one thing to have a cheap house and low cost of living, but that does not help much if the state has a lot of problems and it is not solving them.

 

[Ken-1122]

I don't know why people say this - it's like people read Ayn Rand and never go outside and take a look around. The government can absolutely create jobs. The most obvious, but hardly the only, example is by increasing direct government employment. Bigger military? Jobs! Bigger police force? Jobs! Lower student:teacher ratio? Jobs! More trash collection? Jobs! Public transit? Jobs!

True of course there are a lot of government jobs, and jobs tied to the government via contract. I was talking about private sector jobs, not tied to the government, and I think that is what trump was talking about when he boasts of jobs created.

I'm still waiting for someone to point to some specific regulations that he got rid of and describe for me 1.) how they were "strangling the economy" and 2.) how their removal has caused some of the growth we're seeing now.

Care to take a stab at it? (and just posting a list of all the executive orders he's signed doesn't count)

*Trans-Pacific partnership
*Environmental regulations( like Clean power plan, Coal plan emission standards)
*Paris Climate accord
*Auto Emission standards as well as fuel efficiently standards requiring cars to get 54mpg by 2025
*North American free trade agreement; although he pretty much renegotiated it in a way he said is better for the US

 

[Ken-1122]

And $15 “used to” buy you dinner, drinks, and a bed for the night. Don’t be disingenuous. 42% of working Americans earning less than $15/hr and 51% earning less than $30k/year (this accounts for salary/part time workers) is staggering. There’s no spinning that into a tale of a booming economy. This is a tale of class struggles.

There has always been the poor in this country; my point is things are better now than before.

 

[Ken-1122]

You didn’t include that caveat at first. You’re entitled to the value of the share you purchased, whether it appreciates or not. You are not entitled to profits simply by being an investor. The company is not obligated to turn a profit for you.

I'm not sure of your problem here. What is it about the current shareholder/corporation relationship that you have a problem with?

 

[DavidPT]

Trump is reducing a planned 2.5% federal pay increase to 1%, citing a “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare” as justification. So which is it - is our economy the best its ever been, or are we facing "serious economic conditions"?

Trump Cuts Scheduled Federal Pay Raise, Citing “Serious Economic Conditions” in the Country

IMO, the best economy I ever witnessed was during the Reagan years up until the beginning of Obama's Presidency. And this includes a good economy during Clinton's 8 years.