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Decade of No Income Gains
Global Economic Trend Analysis ^ | 12 Sep 2009 | Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Posted on 09/13/2009 8:34:22 AM PDT by BGHater

For the first time since the great depression (and possibly even then), US wage earners suffered through A Decade With No Income Gains.

The typical American household made less money last year than the typical household made a full decade ago.

To me, that’s the big news from the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, poverty and health insurance, which was released this morning. Median household fell to $50,303 last year, from $52,163 in 2007. In 1998, median income was $51,295. All these numbers are adjusted for inflation.

In the four decades that the Census Bureau has been tracking household income, there has never before been a full decade in which median income failed to rise. (The previous record was seven years, ending in 1985.) Other Census data [Historical Income Tables] suggest that it also never happened between the late 1940s and the late 1960s. So it doesn’t seem to have happened since at least the 1930s.
Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage

Inquiring minds are digging into the Slide Show Presentation on Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008

click on any chart to see a sharper image













There are numerous other charts in the slide show on health insurance and poverty levels. Inquiring minds will want to take a look.

David Leonhardt writes "The streak probably won’t end in 2009, either. Unemployment has been rising all year, which is a strong sign income will fall."

Given that we are likely to have Structurally High Unemployment For A Decade, this trend of stagnant or falling wages can last much longer than most realize.

Here's something to think about: If the housing boom from 2000 to 2007 produced no sustainable wage increases (if indeed any wage increases at all) what will? After pondering that, think about where home prices are going with poor wage potential and tightened lending standards.

Indeed what does this trend say about price pressures in general?


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: debt; economy; income; mish
'Here's something to think about: If the housing boom from 2000 to 2007 produced no sustainable wage increases (if indeed any wage increases at all) what will? After pondering that, think about where home prices are going with poor wage potential and tightened lending standards.'

Joy.

1 posted on 09/13/2009 8:34:22 AM PDT by BGHater
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To: BGHater

These studies do not count non-cash income, such as health insurance provided for employers. They also do not adjust for changes in average household size.


2 posted on 09/13/2009 8:49:39 AM PDT by proxy_user
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To: BGHater
C'mon, people. Think!

This article compares income at the height of the dot-com boom to income during the worst recession since WWII. It then pretends to claim that, ipso facto, there was no increase during 10 years.

Don't fall for such transparent baloney. Incomes were increasing until the recession hit; then they dropped. Who would expect anything different?

3 posted on 09/13/2009 9:40:50 AM PDT by BfloGuy (It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect . . .)
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To: BGHater
These charts show exactly what the opponents of outsourcing/offshoring/visa workers/open borders have been saying for the past decade. This depression actually started right after Y2K. Bubbles in the housing sector and the various imaginary bubbles in the financial sector kept the results hidden or simply delayed.

The RINOs and Democrats waged economic war against the middle class, at a time during which consumer spending accounted for 70% of the economy, and now the results are clearly visible. We are in a full-blown depression, and the communists are in control of the White Hut and both houses of Congress.

Visa workers are still coming in at the rate of 140,000 per month, or 1.68 million per year, displacing American citizens from their jobs, and still no hint of slowing. That accounts for 16.8 million American jobs lost since 1999, mostly among high tech, engineering, and professional categories. Few of these displaced workers ever regain their previous levels of income.

Illegal aliens and H2 visa types have displaced American citizens in construction, food processing, and other unskilled and semi-skilled categories, probably to a tune greater than 20 million over the same decade.

Free Traitors set up the conditions for this communist takeover, and they should be well remembered for it.

4 posted on 09/13/2009 2:13:38 PM PDT by meadsjn
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