It's not that you envy and despise the rich, you say. You just wish they didn't have so much while the rest of have to do with less and less.
But you're buying into the myth of household-income stagnation. The truth is that all Americans are much better off than we used to be, including the poorest Americans:
Yes, the income share of the bottom 20 percent of households shrank from 4.1% in 1970 to 3.4% in 2006. But so what? That is 3.4 percent of a pie three times as large as the pie of 1970. If you adjust that for growth in the number of households, the average income of households in the bottom 20 percent has risen by 36% since 1970.
John Edwards and his "two Americas" are out of the picture, thank goodness, but there's plenty of economic dimwittery left in this presidential race.
Comments
Granted each subsequent generation is doing better than the last (read has more "stuff", as Carlin would put it), but you still have to consider that "if" a household income is STAGNANT (meaning not increasing) while everything ELSE keeps rising in price, many of us can find ourselves a few paychecks from some form of insolvency (not enough "stuff").
Since the household INCOME has risen 36% (since 1970), how has that been OFFSET (read eaten away) by the COST OF LIVING over the same period of time, hmm?
It's all checks & balances.
(or is that smoke & mirrors?)
Excuse me...I've got to get back to finding a place for all MY stuff.
;)
B.G.
O f course this right wing bias source leaves a LOT of the story out, nor does it adjust for inflation.There are plenty of sources biased and unbiased that show quite the opposite is happening, that midlle class wages have remianed stagnant
but theres that lazy journalism thing again, onluy getting the talking points from one source
Inflation adjusted middle class wages have stagnated and even declined by as much as 3.4%. Households have negative savings rates, and record debts. The number of people living below the poverty line have increased while the upper 2% has seen their income increase by over 20%. People are treading water and are offten living one paycheck away from financial disaster from a job loss or serious illness. Costs of food, fuel, medical care, education and so forth have increased dramatically, yet these things are conveniently left out of inflation calculations.
Gas is up another 25 cents today, but my wages didn't go up this much.
Don't take my word for it, do some REAL research from multiple sources and find out for yourself.
The two americas is all too real for working families all over the country.
For those of you that don't subscribe to the "Sky Is Falling" theory......
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty06/pov06hi.html
Poverty: 2006 Highlights
The data presented here are from the Current Population Survey (CPS), 2007 Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), the source of official poverty estimates. The CPS ASEC is a sample survey of approximately 100,000 household nationwide.These data reflect conditions in calendar year 2006.
Highlights
The official poverty rate in 2006 was 12.3 percent, down from 12.6 percent in 2005 (Table 3).
In 2006, 36.5 million people were in poverty, not statistically different from 2005.
Poverty rates in 2006 were statistically unchanged for non-Hispanic Whites (8.2 percent), Blacks (24.3 percent), and Asians (10.3 percent) from 2005. The poverty rate decreased for Hispanics (20.6 percent in 2006, down from 21.8 percent in 2005).
The poverty rate in 2006 was lower than in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available (Figure 3). From the most recent trough in 2000, the rate rose for four consecutive years, from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.7 percent in 2004, and then declined to 12.3 percent in 2006
Hey Tim, it's like I always said:
Poor people are "big business (for someone), so we DO need them. It's profitable to have a slum these days.
I just don't want to become part of them, that's all...lol
B.G.