Pew Report January 2020 on incomes and prosperity

It must have hurt to have to say good things about the Trump economy or the nation in general in this Pew (left of center) Report, which came out in Jan 2020 before Trump halted some travel from China in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. (In hindsight lab leaked viruses laughed at those regulations, just like Pelosi did.) The report does take the long view going back decades to find slow growth and little change. But I did notice that the report noted the shrinking middle class--because people were moving up, not down.

"The unemployment rate in November 2019 was 3.5%, a level not seen since the 1960s."
". . . household incomes, which have rebounded in recent years."

"In 2018, the median income of U.S. households stood at $74,600. This was 49% higher than its level in 1970, when the median income was $50,200." (Incomes are expressed in 2018 dollars.)

"On balance, there was more movement up the income ladder than down the income ladder. [since 1970]"

"Since 1980, incomes have increased faster for the most affluent families – those in the top 5% – than for families in the income strata below them." (If you look at the inflation adjusted charts, this doesn't seem to be so, but if wealth creates wealth and there's been a huge increase in dual income families in the last 40 years, I would agree. In the long run, wealth transfers from the government from the middle class to the lower class may help consumption, but it doesn't build wealth to be passed along by generations.)

Several paragraphs in the report note the rising incomes of the upper income, without noting the disparity in marriage rates. Obviously a three person household of a single mother and two children, is going to be less than a three person household of a married mother, father and child. Income gaps between white and Asian households can usually be adjusted for marriage and number of family members. Childhood poverty can almost all be explained by the difference in marriage rates.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/?

How Black, Hispanic, Asian, White households compare in wealth | Pew Research Center

The Warren Gap fallacy—or how she promotes envy and sows discord

For Example:

There are three married couples; all named The Bruces. White, 8th generation, college educated Americans.   Bruces A are 20+ years old; Bruces B are 50+ years old and Bruces C are 65+ years old. From top to bottom, Bruces A, B, and C.

Bruces C are much wealthier than Bruces A and Bruces B. They have pensions, 403-b, 401-K, Social Security,  investments  and 2 homes. Bruces B have some savings, no investments, and 2 homes.  Bruces A have one house, no savings or investments.  There’s a wealth gap.

Bruces B have a much higher income than Bruces A and Bruces C.  There is an income gap.

Bruces A are much healthier than Bruces B and Bruces C.  There is a health gap.

Bruces A have minimal health insurance, some hospitalization coverage never used; Bruces B have great health insurance from large self insured employer—OSU; Bruces C have Medicare A & B, plus supplemental. Good, but not as great as Bruces B.  There is an insurance gap.

Bruces A take no medications at all.  Bruces B have minor conditions requiring little medication.  Bruces C have had heart, blood pressure, cancer, asthma, cholesterol problems, all treatable.  There is a health consumption gap.

Bruces A are usually employed or under employed—they are students or lower level employees; Bruces B are fully employed, or self-employed and are DINKS; Bruces C are not employed even irregularly.  There is an employment gap.

Bruces A rarely ever have a vacation or travel; Bruces B occasionally travel to visit relatives or vacation close to home; Bruces C travel to many countries and enjoy cruises, they eat out frequently, attend art events, pursue hobbies.  There is a leisure gap.

Which of the Bruces, A, B, or C, does Elizabeth Warren want to tax to "help" the other two?

Illegal immigration does hurt black and Hispanic Americans

"Both low- and high-skilled natives are affected by the influx of immigrants. But because a disproportionate percentage of immigrants have few skills, it is low-skilled American workers, including many blacks and Hispanics, who have suffered most from this wage dip. The monetary loss is sizable. The typical high school dropout earns about $25,000 annually. According to census data, immigrants admitted in the past two decades lacking a high school diploma have increased the size of the low-skilled workforce by roughly 25 percent. As a result, the earnings of this particularly vulnerable group dropped by between $800 and $1,500 each year." 

This is the reason blacks and Hispanics are turning to Trump. He speaks to their concerns. They know Trump is not a racist--if he is he's really bad at it.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216

Income of Americans

Don’t fall for those memes and posters on income disparity, all weepy about how awful things are.  There’s household income, individual income by labor, then there’s income from all sources, then by education, or by gender or by race. The rich do have more, but they also pay most of the taxes.  But no matter how you slice and dice it, Asian Americans (40 different ethnicities) do better than any other group, all the way from Indians ($101,591) to Chinese ($69,586) to Pakistani ($62,848) to Bangladeshi ($44,512). (Nielsen report on Asian Americans) And they are more likely to be married, and to have more members in the household earning money, and to have more education.  The difference between Nigerian Americans ($62,086) and black Americans ($36,544) is much greater than between white and black Americans. (Wikipedia)

The CBO household income figures are higher than any I’ve seen elsewhere because it includes all income including government transfers. In 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, AVERAGE household market income of $86,000—a comprehensive income measure that consists of labor income, business income, capital income including capital gains), and retirement income. Government transfers, which include benefits from programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance, averaged approximately $14,000 per household. The sum of those two amounts, which equals BEFORE TAX INCOME, was about $100,000, on average. https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51361-HouseholdIncomeFedTaxes_OneCol.pdf

Is marriage the culprit?

 "Income and Poverty in the United States: 2015" I've found the gap problem. Marriage. Married couple households in 2014, $81,118; female headed households $36,193; male headed households $53,746. In 2015, it was $84,626; $37,797; and $55,861. I think that's a big jump for all groups, but obviously, married couples do better. Even with my math challenged thinking, I know that two earners will usually yield more income than one earner.  I'm not sure why, but it seems to be in the best interest of government departments and agencies to expand poverty definitions, and there's a new one in the works which adds in all the government benefits instead of using wages/income and adjusts for geographic area. You would think that would lower poverty rates, but it seems to increase them. It's called Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM).  Also, in the first four years of the Obama administration real poverty that lasted 48 months was only 2.7%. Most poverty rate measures are based on months.

The protests in Detroit

Do Trump supporters disrupt Hillary's speeches? I watched on TV some protests at a Detroit church. Apparently it went well. The media really took him over the coals for this one.  Imagine, a Republican going for black votes, when blacks went 99% for Obama in 2008. And in the primaries that election year, they didn't like Hillary.  Is it worth checking to see if she spoke at black churches?  Nah.

This is one area I think Donald sounds way too much like a Democrat-- that he can, from the White House, fix everything that is wrong. Really, that should be the state and local governments' responsibility to fix the schools and attract the employers. Then it should be the homes and churches that prepare the young people to be good employees and loving parents.

Candidates all spend too much time treating blacks as victims, when in reality, in the 21st century they've done extremely well.  The poverty rate for married black families is no different than whites. Their college enrollment rate (not graduation rate) has been higher than whites for almost 2 decades.  We've got a black president, attorney generals, senators, governors, businessmen, and even a pouty football player with white parents making millions a year who is protesting white privilege.

http://blackdemographics.com/households/middle-class/

Black and white incomes are not outrageously different, but in household wealth there is quite a gap.  I think lack of marriage (smaller households, fewer incomes) accounts for a lot of this.  Also, there seems to be a distrust in investing outside one's home and community. Blacks tend to rely more on family and friends for financing.  Only blacks can change that perception. Also blacks more commonly have their wealth tied up in home ownership, and that took a big hit in 2008 due to government fiddling in the housing market.  But I'm sure a Democrat president would decide it's unfair that whites have saved and invested for our old age, and should have our wealth "redistributed."

http://www.urban.org/urban-wire/stalled-struggling-black-middle-class

Spending patterns of older Americans

 

 

  By 2050, when our children are 80+ there will twice as many seniors as today. So the purpose of this study (BLS) is to figure out how do people over 65 spend money (we’re consumer units). If businesses and investor are going to plan, they need to know where the opportunities are.

 

The first thing you notice is how income, which peaks in the 50s, drops in the 70s (retirement pensions, savings, investments—which is why we need to elect capitalists). I think the food category is high, but that’s because it probably includes eating out—and we sort of tuck that into entertainment (we don't do much for entertainment). Everyone eats out much more than they need to—food is pretty reasonable, but if you’re paying someone to prepare and serve it, not so much. In 2013, Americans spent 5.6 percent of their disposable personal incomes on food at home and 4.3 percent on food away from home. 

  

I was surprised that housing costs (as percent of income) were as high as the study shows.

Contributions got lumped into “other” so that’s a pretty sloppy category. I know there are all sorts of categories we could reduce, but really don’t have the will. Clothing costs are down for older Americans.  I just love shopping for clothes at resale stores and getting brand name jeans for $1.00. I didn’t discover them til after I retired. For nice stuff, I just let my daughter do that for Christmas and birthdays. But that trend isn't good for some malls and retail stores with such a shift in demographics.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-5/spending-patterns-of-older-americans.htm

More have slipped into lower income group under Obama

At the county level we've lost a lot of ground under Obama. "Based on poverty rate estimates for all 3,141 counties for all ages, 26 percent (820 counties) had a statistically significant increase in poverty between 2007 (the year before the most recent recession) and 2014. Only 1 percent of counties had a statistically significant decrease in poverty during that period."

The recession was "over" in June 2009, yet the middle class has lost out and some have slipped downward. Finger wagging (Obama), criticizing the GOP (Hillary) and creating additional expensive government programs (Bernie) won't take the place of sound economic policies.

http://www.census.gov/did/www/saipe/data/highlights/files/2014highlights.pdf

Income mobility in the U.S.

Today I was looking at a report on income within quintiles, and see that in the bottom, about 50% move up, quite a few to the top. But in the top, many move down. Their real income went down. Median incomes of all taxpayers increased by 24 percent after adjusting for inflation. There's still a lot of mobility in the USA. However, the report was for 2007, and I checked and can't find anything newer from Treasury. I think it's just too painful for the O-admin to see it. Better to whine about a gap than praise mobility.

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Documents/incomemobilitystudy03-08revise.pdf

The key findings of this study include:
• There was considerable income mobility of individuals in the U.S. economy during the 1996 through 2005 period as over half of taxpayers moved to a different income quintile over this period.
• Roughly half of taxpayers who began in the bottom income quintile in 1996 moved up to a higher income group by 2005.
• Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 – the top 1/100 of 1 percent – only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005. Moreover, the median real income of these taxpayers declined over this period.
• The degree of mobility among income groups is unchanged from the prior decade (1987 through 1996).
• Economic growth resulted in rising incomes for most taxpayers over the period from 1996 to 2005. Median incomes of all taxpayers increased by 24 percent after adjusting for inflation. The real incomes of two-thirds of all taxpayers increased over this period. In addition, the median incomes of those initially in the lower income groups increased more than the median incomes of those initially in the higher income groups.

Robert Putnam speaks at Lakeside

Robert D. Putnam was our program at Lakeside last night--he’s an entertaining, engaging speaker, about my age, married 55 years, a Harvard graduate and college professor.  Even with charts and graphs that show the widening income and behavior gap between upper class (which is growing) and lower class (also growing) and middle class (shrinking) he can hold a large audience‘s attention. He clearly laid out the reasons (particularly for near-by Port Clinton, Ohio, his home town), but his solutions are what one would expect from an academic--more money for education. Twenty years ago his “Bowling alone” book showed how Americans were not pulling together in the communities, clubs, churches and fraternal societies working for the larger good as they had been in the first half of the 20th century.  And that was before the me-phone.

I was shocked to learn that in 1990 Port Clinton’s out of wedlock birth rate was 9% (below the national average) and today just 25 years later is about 40% just a little less than Columbus and above Ohio’s rate. This is not Chicago or Cleveland, but little Port Clinton (ca. 6,000 population, 93% white).  So guess which children are doing better in all measures? Which children are attending church and leaving Port Clinton to go to college?  Children living with married parents who provide economically, spiritually, and socially for them.

And yet he wants education and government to solve this. My belief is that government has contributed to the problem with 128 transfer programs taking money from the middle class to give to the poor that would make a woman think twice or thrice before marrying a guy who cares more about cars and sports than his children, causing her to lose health and housing benefits. Marriage and responsibility help young men become grown ups; the government helps them remain adolescents until they can collect Medicare.

He noted that at the turn of the 20th century Americans decided tax supported high school was important and it made a huge difference in the lives of the poor.  But for some reason I think he’s believing compulsory, government pre-schools and free college will do the same.  Well, not without marriage, and not without jobs—but it will be more jobs for academics and government bureaucracies.

http://robertdputnam.com/about-our-kids/ 

http://robertdputnam.com/about-our-kids/press-release/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/books/review/our-kids-by-robert-d-putnam.html?_r=0

Proximity to healthy food doesn’t mean people will eat healthy

Research published in 2012 debunked the idea that "food deserts" were hurting poor people. You can take people to the best supermarket or freshest farmer's market, but you can't make them eat fewer calories, give up junk food, or buy/eat healthy. The mayor of Baltimore can't control crime increases in Baltimore, so she thinks she perhaps she can force them to eat differently

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-food-desert-20150610-story.html?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/do-food-deserts-matter-do-they-even-exist/2012/04/18/gIQA1B56QT_blog.html

“Results showed that only 15% of respondents shopped for food within their home census tract. Although the closest supermarket was only 2.0 km from home, the mean distance to the primary supermarket was 4.8 km. Nonwhite respondents lived the same distance to the closest supermarket than Whites, but traveled further to their primary store. College graduates lived closer to supermarkets and shopped closer to home than non-graduates. No significant effects were found by income.”

http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/meeting_abstract/24/1_MeetingAbstracts/lb331

Five quintiles, four races, four pillars of success

There are five quintiles the government uses to show economic groups in the U.S. The top quintile (incomes about $94,000+) pays almost 84% of the income taxes. The quintile figure doesn't provide number of earners in a household, and most in that quintile have two  earners, which lower the quintiles may not.

There are four groups tracked--Asian households have the highest income, then white, then Hispanic, then black. There are four pillars holding up the higher and upper middle earning groups--1) marriage, 2) higher education, 3) social capital by which they contribute to their community--local clubs, politics, sports, and 4) organized religion.

There are a lot of sources to check for this information:  The CBO, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49440 and Charles Murray "Coming Apart" (2012) and  The Heritage Foundation to name a few. http://blackdemographics.com/households/marriage-in-black-america/  The Wikipedia article has a good bibliography, but is about 6-7 years old.

Don’t believe the leftist chefs cooking the economic soup with jiggered figures about the suffering middle class

“Measured in 2013 dollars, after-tax median income rose briskly from $46,998 in 1983 to $70,393 in 2008 but remained below that 2008 peak in 2011. The sizable increase before 2008 is partly because the average of all federal taxes paid by the middle fifth has almost been cut in half since 1981—from 19.2% that year to 17.7% in 1989, 16.5% in 2000, 13.6% in 2003 and 11.2% in 2011.” Because people have lost income under Obama, he wants it to look like a 40 year tradition. Nonsense.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/alan-reynolds-the-mumbo-jumbo-of-middle-class-economics-1425340903/

Minimum wage? What about middle wage?

Don't be fooled by sob stories about minimum wage.  It's a tiny percentage of American workers—4.3% of hourly wage earners and 2.9% of all workers.  The whines and finger wagging at the teleprompter keep us distracted from the fact that Obama demonizes business, capitalism and wealth, and that means the middle class wages are flat. The economy is stagnant. It is the middle class not getting a raise. By talking about minimums he doesn't have to address your business or investments squashed by oppressive taxes and regulations. 78% of minimum wage earners are white and 63% are female.  The average family income of a minimum wage earner is $53,113 and they are more likely to have some college than the average American worker. Why?  They are not the primary earner of the family!

“Perhaps surprisingly, not very many people earn minimum wage, and they make up a smaller share of the workforce than they used to. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, last year 1.532 million hourly workers earned the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour; nearly 1.8 million more earned less than that because they fell under one of several exemptions (tipped employees, full-time students, certain disabled workers and others), for a total of 3.3 million hourly workers at or below the federal minimum.”

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/

“The primary value of minimum-wage jobs is that they are learning jobs. They teach inexperienced employees basic employment skills that make them more productive and enable them to earn raises or move to better jobs.”

“The proposed minimum wage increase of $10.10 an hour would bring the minimum cost of hiring a full-time worker—including the Obamacare penalties—to $12.71 an hour.”

 http://www.heritage.org/research/factsheets/2014/01/facts-about-the-minimum-wage

Minimum wage “often holds back many of the workers its proponents want to help. Higher minimum wages both reduce overall employment and encourage relatively affluent workers to enter the labor force. Minimum wage increases often lead to employers replacing disadvantaged adults who need a job with suburban teenagers who do not.” 

http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/2013/06/what-is-minimum-wage-its-history-and-effects-on-the-economy

Belmont and Fishtown, fictional cities of Charles Murray

“To represent the classes at the two ends of the continuum, I give you two fictional neighborhoods that I hereby label Belmont (after an archetypal upper-middle-class suburb near Boston) and Fishtown (after a neighborhood in Philadelphia that has been white working class since the Revolution). To be assigned to Belmont, the people in my databases must have at least a bachelor’s degree and work as a manager, physician, attorney, engineer, architect, scientist, college professor, or in content-production jobs in the media. To be assigned to Fishtown, they must have no academic degree higher than a high school diploma. If they work, their job must be in a blue-collar, service, or low-level white-collar occupation.

Here’s what happened to the founding virtues in Belmont and Fishtown from 1960 to 2010:

The text covers marriage, industriousness, honesty, and religiosity.

http://www.aei.org/publication/belmont-fishtown/

In 1960 9% of the men in Fishtown were not in the labor force; by 2000 it was 30%.  But the unemployment rate was about the same.  The men just didn’t work.  They might get some cash under the table, or work minimally for awhile to qualify for benefits, but then would quit.

Combine men who don’t work with single women raising children, and things don’t look good for Fishtown. Low church attendance and very low civic involvement. Even the men whose income is above poverty level do not participate in the community to make it better and stronger.

The War on Poverty

Notice that the bottom quintile is lifted briefly about 10 years, and after that the top quintile takes off. Poverty is lucrative business for politicians and bureaucrats.

With 126 programs to transfer wealth, there's not enough incentive to give up the government safety net and take the risk that education, investing and marriage require.

Are we being lied to about race and income by the media and politicians?

Today I was looking at the U.S. Census.  Now, to answer a question, you can’t always get a table of Honey Crisp apples.  Sometimes it’s apples and oranges in a box.    For instance, I looked at the Family Income by race—but the table didn’t define “family.” That’s not necessarily mom, dad and kids.  I suppose for census purposes it’s any group of related people living in a household, but I don’t actually know.  Anyway, it’s Table 695. Money Income of Families—Number and Distribution by Race and Hispanic Origin: 2009. U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012   Based on that table, the percent of white families earning over $100,000 is 27%; the percent of black families earning over $100,000 is 12.1%; the percent of Hispanic families earning over $100,000 is 12.4% and the percent of Asian families earning over $100,000 is 37.7%.  So if whites are 77.7% of the population and blacks are 13.2%,  and Asians are 5.3%, if something needs to be investigated, if something isn’t “fair,” if the president wants to address a wealth gap, wouldn’t it be the fault of the Asian families?  What are they doing to “deserve” such a big slice of the pie?  Marriage?  Education?  Values? Entrepreneurship? Have you ever heard the president chastise Asians for their education, intelligence, hard work?  Their median family income is $75,027, black family income is $38,409.

Herman Cain looks at the “good works” for blacks since Obama took office

“If Michelle Nunn wins that means Democrats keep control of the Senate and we can keep on doing some good works.” Barack Obama

Let’s look at the numbers (in all cases giving you the most recent numbers I could get):

• The median income for blacks in 2013 was $34,598. It was $35,387 in 2009.
• In 2013 the number of blacks living under the poverty line -- roughly $12,000 for an individual – rose to more than 11 million. In all, 27.2 percent of blacks were living in poverty in 2013. In 2009, roughly 9.9 million blacks (25.8 of all blacks) lived below the poverty level.
• Non-Hispanic blacks accounted for 37.4 percent of the total federal and state prison population in 2013. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, blacks are 13.2 percent of the U.S. population.
• 43 percent of blacks owned their own home in 2013. The rate was 46.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009.
• Black students had a high school graduation rate of 69 percent in 2011-12. The rate was 66.1 percent in 2009-10.
• From 2009 to 2011, the number of black workers earning only the minimum wage swelled by 16.6 percent, while the same number for whites rose by only 5.2 percent.

http://www.caintv.com/black-stats-obama-doesnt-want

The real income gap—the occupation, not the gender

According to ColumbusCEO magazine, May 2014, there is a considerable income gap—among professions. Salary averages for a range of executive and professional occupations:

Annual Mean Wages—BLS, May 2012, Wage estimates (it doesn’t say if this is a national or local mean)

$40,970  real estate agents

$60,829  HR specialists

$67,080,  accountants

$71,500  architects and engineers

$82,600 software application developers

$122,,810  lawyers

$169,920 CEOs

$247,240 surgeons

The BLS figures are quite removed from occupational surveys (it is much lower).  Maybe the professions are promoting a rosier picture? Or different information?  For instance the Information Architectural Institute posts the salaries closer to the high nineties and includes the age ranges, benefits, geographic spread, education level, etc.

“For example the median expected annual pay for a typical Human Resources Manager in the United States is $89,406 so 50% of the people who perform the job of Accountant I in the United Sates are expected to make less than $89,406,” reports Salary.com .

The nationwide mean for CEOs is $176,840, but in Columbus it is $176,230, Indianapolis $189,100, and Cleveland $188.320, but the BLS figures are $169,920. Quite a gap between Columbus and Indianapolis, both state capitals and home of many businesses and industries.

Anyway, there is a big differences between a female real estate agent and a female surgeon, a male accountant and a male CEO.

Intolerant gays on the left

Only about 2% of the population is gay--and most of them haven’t taken the steps to insure their partners (at Ohio State you can buy insurance for your gay domestic partner, but not straight), put their names on a mortgage, include them in a will, or have a joint checking account. Many males have the same motive as their straight colleagues--protect their money and estates (some have children and grandchildren and have been in multiple relationships).  And gay men are among the wealthiest demographic, in part because up until now they’ve been able to keep it all ($61,500 compared with the national median of $50,054, lower unemployment, more education).  A lot of the ridiculous show of gay intolerance comes not from gays, but from heterosexuals, disappointed with their own relationships and failed marriages, so of course, it's society's fault, or the institution of marriage.

Employees at Mozilla, the organization that created the Firefox web browser, has shown their warped sense of commitment to “tolerance” by demanding the termination of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich because he dared to oppose gay marriage.

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/03/28/liberal-tolerance-mozilla-employees-demand-ceo-step-down-over-his-support-of-traditional-marriage/

http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/06/pf/gay-money/

http://nogaymarriage.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/why-i-oppose-gay-marriage/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/02/26/gays-who-dont-want-gay-marriage.html#url=/articles/2011/02/26/gays-who-dont-want-gay-marriage.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/style/gay-couples-choosing-to-say-i-dont.html?pagewanted=all

The left never allows tolerance or bi-partisanship, cooperation or acceptance.  They always need to be stirring the pot.