Are We Really Making Progress?

Are we really making progress?

Shortly after the stock market rebounded from the depths of the financial crisis, Time magazine named Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as its 2009 Person of the Year for the aggressive interventions he took to presumably prevent a second Great Depression.

Bernanke used his position at the Fed to blast trillions of newly printed dollars into the financial system to shore up almost every aspect of the nation’s financial system.  Investors were bailed out, banks were bailed out, but that avalanche of money somehow didn’t make its way into worker wages – arguably the most important measure of all.

Note: if you’ve read any of our Monday Morning Outlooks, you will know that the banks simply sat on the money, boosting their balance sheets, but not putting the money into circulation.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, in data from 2007-2014 all workers except those with advanced degrees actually lost ground in inflation adjusted (“real”) terms, and even those with advanced degrees didn’t experience any wage gains – they just didn’t lose ground like everyone else!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, so if you only look at this rather old data, you wouldn’t know that things are really looking up.  Here are a couple of short paragraphs from yesterday’s report….

Either way, we expect very good sales for November and December combined. Payrolls are up 2 million from a year ago. Meanwhile, total earnings by workers (excluding irregular bonuses/commissions as well as fringe benefits) are up 4.1%.

Some will dismiss the growth as “the rich getting richer,” but the facts say otherwise. Usual weekly earnings for full-time workers at the bottom 10% are up 4.6% versus a year ago; earnings for those at the bottom 25% are up 5.3% from a year ago. By contrast, usual weekly earnings for the median worker are up 3.9% while earnings for those at the top 25% and top 10% are up less than 2%.
It all depends on your source of the information you’re reading about.  Look for ways to get other perspectives, not just the ones you agree with!