“The resources required simply to maintain the same working-class lifestyle over the last two decades have risen much more dramatically than we’ve been led to believe.”
Politico recently published an article on the reality of the economic situation that America has found herself these last few years. They appear shocked that contrary to the government data sets, the numbers and indicators are false. The rosey picture painted by Democrats was all a facade hiding the serious issues that face Americans not in the gilded top 10%. The economy isn’t “Stronger than ever” as Biden declared before leaving office. This new revelation would make one think a mea culpa is in order from the Left. (Spoiler: That isn’t happening)
The Narrative Machine
Before the presidential election, many Democrats were puzzled by the seeming disconnect between “economic reality” as reflected in various government statistics and the public’s perceptions of the economy on the ground. Many in Washington bristled at the public’s failure to register how strong the economy really was. They charged that right-wing echo chambers were conning voters into believing entirely preposterous narratives about America’s decline.{Bold emphasis added}
One benefit of being a Progressive is that you are never wrong, only puzzled or were looking at the wrong data. You can “bristle” at the lowly public for not believing the words and viewpoints you have so graciously shared with the dirt people underneath your rule. When regular people keep telling you that costs are rising for groceries and other living costs, waving a federal statistics sheet in their face is about as condescending as it gets.
Conditions are declining
These numbers have time and again suggested to many in Washington that unemployment is low, that wages are growing for middle America and that, to a greater or lesser degree, economic growth is lifting all boats year upon year. But when traveling the country, I’ve encountered something very different. Cities that appeared increasingly seedy. Regions that seemed derelict. Driving into the office each day in Washington, I noted a homeless encampment fixed outside the Federal Reserve itself. And then I began to detect a second pattern inside and outside D.C. alike. Democrats, on the whole, seemed much more inclined to believe what the economic indicators reported. Republicans, by contrast, seemed more inclined to believe what they were seeing with their own two eyes. {Bold emphasis added}
That the author shows amazement at what he sees across the country when not ensconced within his economic think tank, even though this reality is something regular Americans see daily. Homeless camps increasing. Unsafe cities that in the past were places of national pride. A national ruin is happening before our eyes. To see billions sent overseas through USAID and other boondoggles while this occurs is a travesty.
To the author’s credit, the Ludwig Institute he is affiliated with appears to see the economic picture in a clearer light than Progressives.
Yes, Wages are not rising
The picture is similarly misleading when examining the methodology used to track how much Americans are earning. The prevailing government indicator, known colloquially as “weekly earnings,” tracks full-time wages to the exclusion of both the unemployed and those engaged in (typically lower-paid) part-time work. Today, as a result, those keeping track are led to believe that the median wage in the U.S. stands at roughly $61,900. But if you track everyone in the workforce — that is, if you include part-time workers and unemployed job seekers — the results are remarkably different. Our research reveals that the median wage is actually little more than $52,300 per year. Think of that: American workers on the median are making 16 percent less than the prevailing statistics would indicate.
Factors not addressed that depress wages such as mass immigration, visa worker programs, and the constant devaluation of the US dollar is convenient. Looking through the historical timeline of American labor going back just in the last 50 years, one encounters story after story of big business interests using the mantra “Jobs Americans won’t do” as a justification for all sorts of methods used to depress wages, import (legally and illegally) more compliant, cheaper labor sources, and overall pad the bottom line at the expense of native-born workers.
I don’t celebrate corporations and the politicians who assist the enrichment of themselves at the detriment of my nation’s people. If an economy isn’t going to work for the natives I’m perfectly willing to watch it implode and be reconstructed so that it does.
The GDP Excel Spreadsheet God
Which brings us to the question of gross domestic product, a figure that stands perhaps as the most important single economic indicator because it is commonly viewed as a proxy for prosperity writ large. There is, to be sure, real value in tracking the sheer volume of domestic production, though GDP is an imperfect measure even of that. But as useful as the figure may be in the sense that it purports to track generalized national wealth, it is hampered by a profound flaw: It reveals almost nothing about how the attendant prosperity is shared. That is, if a small slice of the population is awarded the great bulk of the bounty from economic growth while everyone else remains unenriched, GDP would rise nevertheless. And that, to a crucial degree, is exactly what has happened.{Bold added for emphasis} Here, the aggregate measure of GDP has hidden the reality that a more modest societal split has grown into an economic chasm. Since 2013, Americans with bachelor’s or more advanced degrees have, in the aggregate, seen their material well-being improve — by the Federal Reserve’s estimate, an additional tenth of adults have risen to comfort. Those without high school degrees, by contrast, have seen no real improvement. And geographic disparities have widened along similar lines, with places ranging from San Francisco to Boston seeing big jumps in income and prosperity, but places ranging from Youngstown, Ohio, to Port Arthur, Texas, falling further behind. The crucial point, even before digging into the nuances, is clear: America’s GDP has grown, and yet we remain largely blind to these disparities.{Bold added for emphasis}
Worshipping GDP growth like it’s the all-knowing parameter signaling the economic health of the nation is one of the greatest tricks pulled on the workers of America. Sure, NAFTA and the offshoring of manufacturing rose the GDP significantly over the last few decades, but was this good for the average American? Progressives used to champion the working class, yet now can only give out pithy statements about “kitchen table” issues. (And yes, Republicans have done this as well. There’s a reason the Uniparty phrase exists.)
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All the information in this Politico article was known by regular Americans living day-to-day in the real world and not encapsulated within the D.C. bubble. Do not hold your breath though, and wait for all the economic “experts” working at CNN, NYT, MSNBC, and the rest of legacy media to offer apologies or contrition for essentially calling voters stupid for not believing them over their own eyes (and wallets) at the condition of the economy. Nor will the Progressive Democrats admit that they feigned ignorance about the situation.