Is the American economy better off?

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After this happened:

The view over a longer timeline provides no more comfort. The median income in this country hasn’t risen at all in real terms for 40 years. The United States since most of us were born has regularly harvested more wealth than any other nation in the history of the world, but the fruits have been increasingly carried toward the tip of the pyramid. While income in the middle brackets stagnated over the past four decades, income for the upper 1% tripled. As recently as the middle of the 20th century, the share of the United States’ national income taken by the top 10% of income earners was about one-third. Now it is more like 50%. The fortunate pinnacle, the top 1% of all households, received 10% of the nation’s total income in the middle of the 20th century. Now the upper 1% takes about one-quarter of the grand total. If you are in this segment, I hope you can be grateful without believing that this is the way things ought to be.

Is the American Dream Dying? - Knowledge@Wharton

What does this say of the market fundamentalist preferred model of economic growth, trickle-down economics? Why give enormous tax brakes to those in the upper brackets when this so clearly hasn't worked in the past?

Why do all Republican candidates for the Presidency still insist on this?

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Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the share of total income held by the bottom 20% of American households, which was never out of the single digits, has fallen by two points. That means that the middle classes have absorbed the loss of fifteen of the national income points that shifted to the possession of the top decile. Another widely quoted measure of growing disparity, affecting mainly the middle class, is the ratio of CEO pay to the average American worker’s pay. This ratio, which stood at about 20 to one when I was young, is now close to 300 to one. These trends are just not healthy for the nation.

Is the American Dream Dying? - Knowledge@Wharton

The economy was able to sustain this shift first by the influx of women into the working force, sustaining household income and hence consumption, and then by massive borrowing, but the financial crisis exposed that as well, no wonder economic growth is disappointing.

[Admin]

While Republicans predict the end of the world if a Democrat gets to the White House, we almost forget that there already is a Democrat in the White House. Someone who is regularly called a socialist. How is he doing? Well..

The long road back from the Great Recession began in mid-2009 and July marks the 84th month of recovery. By next February the expansion is likely to move into third place. The expansion can break an all-time record of 120 months if the economy continues to chug along until June 2019 — three years from now.

Current U.S. economic recovery may end up as longest ever - MarketWatch

Since the job market bottomed out in January 2010, in the depths of the Great Recession, the U.S. economy has produced more than 14 million jobs. That's pushed the total level of payrolls some 5.7 million higher than when the recession hit in late 2007.

Obama's record on jobs versus five other presidents

For stock market investors, Democrats have clearly outperformed Republicans in the White House over the last 40 years. The Standards & Poor's 500 index rose 150 percent during the Clinton administration; under Obama, stock prices have been rising by 100 percent. (We're using Yale economist Robert Shiller's inflation-adjusted data.) Those gains compare with net losses of 45 percent under Bush II, gains of about 30 percent under Bush I, and a 50 percent gain under Reagan. Stock prices lost about 13 percent of their value during the Carter administration.

Grading the Obama economy, by the numbers

Perhaps he didn't do too badly. And that's despite raising taxes on the rich and introducing Obamacare, which was supposed to clobber the economy..

Now, get this, has Obama been good for jobs in general and more especially for the long-term unemployed? 

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The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, but the underlying trend continued to point to sustained labor market strength. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 266,000 for the week ended July 23, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Claims for the prior week were revised to show 1,000 fewer applications received than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast initial claims rising to 260,000 in the latest week. Claims have now been below 300,000, a threshold associated with a healthy labor market, for 73 consecutive weeks, the longest stretch since 1973.

US weekly jobless claims total 266,000 vs 260,000 estimate