Americans' incomes falling (unless you're rich)

Just so you know just how great this recovery is.

http://news.yahoo.com/except-rich-americans-incomes-fell-last-220335392.html;_ylt=AwrBJR_C1B1VzXsAYUvQtDMD

Meanwhile, the wealth of Canada's middle class has surpassed that of the USA's middle class. Maybe we should emulate some of their policies?

But somehow I doubt that's what you had in mind.

My secret agenda is to make Obama look bad. It's true.

If that's all your point is, go for it. Usually these talking points are used to promote policies that exacerbate the problem which is what I have an issue with.

My personal favorite is the cellophane one.

It's been like this since the 80s, not news.

and despite this we see declining social programs for the poor/middle class and the right refuses to raise taxes on the rich to redistribute the wealth.

America is doing great.

i wish these stupid articles would cite medians and not averages...

I'm not rich, just living the American dream.

Here you go: Link

The death of good industrial jobs is what is killing the middle class. Those jobs paid decent wages and had good benefits, and did not require multiple years of post grad work. Cant blame obama for that.

I have arguments about this subject with conservative friends/family of mine all the time ... and I'm conservative. They like to accuse me of being liberal because of my thoughts on this issue but I'm anything but. I use to believe in trickle-down economics, even would argue in favor of it, because mathematically it makes sense. The problem has turned out to be, and we've had over 3 decades to observe its effect now, that it fails to take human psychology into account. The idea is that when the rich get richer they'll spend that money in ways that benefit the rest of us; create new jobs, give raises, increase benefits, etc. But they don't. Instead they horde it ... FOREVER. Sure, they invest it but in ways that benefits them, in ways that protects the money. The top few percentage points of the economic landscape is like a black hole: money goes in but never comes back out. The result has been that we now have wealth inequality in this country parallel to what it was in the 1920s, or y'know ... what led to the Great Depression! Emerging facts on the ground have caused me to make a 180 when it comes to this and I wish Republicans would wake up and accept that whether the concept looks good on paper or not it simply doesn't work and has caused considerable harm.

Very true, it's the lack of manufacturing the last few decades that's put the US on this path and the one who did more than any other president to destroy that industry was Billy "BJ" Clinton with NAFTA. Of course, technology has vastly improved thus eliminating jobs and improving efficiencies, but those losses are a drop in the bucket compared to all the companies that left for Mexico. Of course, it took years until the effects showed, but by then it was too late, the damage done.

For all the damage NAFTA had done, the continuous damage being done is government regulations and taxation. Agencies like the EPA had their time and place, but they've outlasted their necessity. The EPA has hampered what growth could be created today with new regulations that don't need to exist solely to justify their existence. In some instances, this has caused companies in the US to have to purchase products from overseas. Yup, government agencies are easy to create and impossible to eliminate or reduce their power.

I have more to say about the lack of jobs and their causes, but this isn't the time or place. All I can say is it's not one specific person or reason, but at least a dozen major causes for the death of industrial/manufacturing jobs and that the current administration is not helping things and neither have the last 2-3 previous administrations.

@mattbbpl: Bad idea considering we too have a class of people called the working poor and a major homeless problem. Look to Sweden if you want a model that seams to benefit everyone as I can say first hand the system here in Canada isn't worth emulating in almost any form. Government takes almost or just above half your money, while almost never taxing billionaire corporations due to how Free trade works here and the subsidiaries these companies use. So many issues... It's a wonder the world even works with people in charge that create such shit systems in the first place.

I work in a manufacturing plant in the automotive industry. Unfortunately not at GM or something like that ... those guys still make decent wages and benefits right now. But my company does make parts for GM and other places you've heard of like Harley Davidson. My shop was a pretty good blue collared job before it got bought by a publicly traded company. Now everything has gone to hell. The company is making more money than it ever has, in fact every year tends to beat out the previous record year. But for employees the change has been terrible. Most of the benefits employees once had are now gone and the few left are fought for each and every contract. Wages have gone down instead of up. It's especially bad for new hires because everything is tiered now and they make considerably less money than somebody hired several years ago despite doing the same job. It's very bizarre to be at meetings where management is talking about how great the company is doing, act as though we're practically printing money, and then when contract time comes all ya hear is how we need to be getting less for what we do than we were before. At this place the stockholder is everything, the employee nothing ... and I mean NOTHING. Was so much better when there wasn't a crapload of stockholders in the equation.

Can't personally attest to working for companies owned by corporate entities, but I don't disagree that the corporate mentality of stocks and constant growth has been good for things. Unfotunately, they would look at "stagnant growth" at such a shop like yours like it's terrible and thus needing to cut costs, when in years past any growth no matter how small was good.

Most definitely the younger crowd will be hurt most by the new corporate economy that champions higher efficiencies, faster production, and reduced workforces that work for lower wages. It's tough enough for the early 20's coming out of college to find a job and when they do, it's not for any decent pay because there are no openings. How can you call it a good thing when 700 people reply to a job posting to work as a janitor or in deburring?

Yeah, my advice to young people is to do everything they can to become stockholders because the way things work nowadays is that stockholders are the only people that matter. It ain't about what wage ya earn (That can be snatched away in an instant) but what ya own and how much of it.

My incomes falling and i'm not even rich nor a american :(

and this is why we need unions again.

Jesus Christ. Canada has only ten percent the population of the US, yet has a wealthier middle class?

*runs into a busy intersection*

Lol, we have a union, UAW. We didn't prior to the buyout, UAW came with the deal. Yep, getting unionized was an ENORMOUS step backwards for employees here. Pretty messed up, eh? Public unions still wield considerable power cuz ya can't move a state or city. But private unions are worthless now because of the global economy. My union's only function is to take a cut of my pay. They don't want us losing our jobs entirely because that would mean they lose their cut but lowered wages and lost benefits are fine to them cuz they still get payed that way.

Unions are just another way for those in power to take a cut from those that are not.

If a non Union job pays $20 an hour, and a Union job pays $22 yet takes $4 an hour in Union dues, what is the better wage?

I thought UAW members made good money.

I think unions are a means to force decent wages in the first place. Just look at stores like Walmart and target which practically treat their employees like slaves.

If they were unionized they could force better wages and working conditions.

Some do (Their numbers are quickly dwindling though), but there are plenty of people in American automotive manufacturing plants under UAW that make as little as $10 an hour. When free trade became a big thing that was the beginning of the end for private unions in America.

My previous company was a partnership that was bought out by Bain during my tenure, and I know exactly what you mean. We created a new product that proved to be wildly popular, and every quarter we'd hear about how revenue is up such and such, profits were up such and such, and the growth trajectory was excellent.

Yet we had 3 consecutive years of wage freezes during that time, and my team was cut in half. It was bizarre to watch.

There should be a law that forces rich folks to actually spend they're income. All they do is horde money, they hardly invest any of it into new jobs and opportunities for others. The poor and middle class are spending money and making the economy flow. The one percent just keep it all tucked away for no good reason, they're total scum.

Thanks Ronald Reagan.

I still admire Ronald Reagan, think he was the greatest president of my lifetime. But he did make a huge mistake with taxes. I think his heart was in the right place, he just underestimated the comic book-like greed of the super rich. Politicians nowadays have been made well aware of how greedy they are but won't do anything about it because they're owned by them.

So I make $15k more than the median household income on my own? Wuuuuut.....

@MakeMeaSammitch:

Keep taxing the rich. A poor man never offered me a job. Ben Franklin wanted to make it uncomfortable for the poor so they would strive to get themselves out of poverty. Today stay poor and we will take the money from someone else and give it to you. So you will always stay poor dependent on the government. The people in this country do not know what it is to be really poor.

welcome to the world of a publicly traded company. shareholder first, employee second, growth at any cost, all that matters is the next earnings report.

@Storm_Marine: We should probably lower taxes for the rich am I right?

@JimB: have you just devolved into nothing more than a list of one liner talking points?

That's unskilled Labor.

For every Wal-Mart Employee making min wage, there are ten ready to replace them at a moments notice.

Wal-Mart Employees have no leverage

Wal-Mart just raised the wages of their US workers recently. And so did McDonald's, who raised it by $1 and are projected to increase it to $10 by the end of next year. They did this because of the protests and walkouts last year. Granted this is just for McDonald's restaurants run by the corporation (franchise restaurants are a weird gray area) - but it's still a nice start and shows that unskilled workers certainly have some leverage.

As the amount of manufacturing jobs continues to transition over to service industry jobs the lower the income will become. Manufacturing has always paid better then standing at a cash register giving people change. A downward trend in wages is to be expected. Unless we can recover a lot of the higher quality jobs that are transitioning out of country it's likely the trend will continue.

That was a Media move.

Mcdonalds raised Wages for 10% of workers in 10% of their franchises.

Wal-Mart raised wages for full time hourly employees which they haven't hired in over 3 years.

Wal-Mart changed their policy for new hourly workers to be hired part time only over 5 years ago.

Moves look good on paper, don't mean anything in the long run

Modern day slavery! Just watch the first 20 min of the Lego Movie. That's exactly what 'Merica is. No Lie!

quickly, cut the minimum wage to save everybody

Of course it's a media move - they were tired of getting bad press due to all the protests and advocacy done on social media so thus they raised wages for some people. 90,00 workers at McDonald's and 500,000 at Wal-Mart. Like I said, it's a good start. Could it be better? Yeah no doubt, but it still shows they have some lobbying power with their employer.

Well I wouldn't quite put it that way. The only thing that can't be taken from you is knowledge and information. My advice to young people is to learn as much as you can, for as little as you can. Above all I would say network with the people who will hire you not because you're the best man for the job, but because you helped hook him up with some good blow and got him mega laid.

Yeah, Unions are a means to force higher wages... only to make sure that they get their cut and to keep union guys from losing their jobs and thus, losing union money. I've only ever seen one union guy get fired and that was because his quality was absolutely horrible. Other than those two things, that was all Unions did.

Then again, that was skilled labor. Unskilled labor unions may get a slight increase in pay, but that increase would be negated by the union dues. In the end, it's the unions that get the money, not employees, especially unskilled ones.

@JimB: Do you know what the poor are?

I get the impression you've had a sheltered life when you say things like that.

That's why they need unions. Because they don't have skills to really back themselves up.

State wide walk outs are pretty devastating to revenue, and mass strikes can wield a lot of power.

@MakeMeaSammitch:

Sheltered life, no. I started working when I was eight years old helping my granddad clean a bingo hall. My pay was a dollar a week and any change I could find on the floor. My Dad was often laid off from work and did any kind of work he could find. When I was fifty four I lost my job and had to start over. Sheltered life no, but I felt as long as a could find work I would improve my lot in life not wait on a free hand out from someone else that had to work for their wealth.

@Serraph105:

No I am talking from experience.

The USA is a country by the rich, for the rich and with the rich people. Also known as "job creators."

Wow, I'm not really sure what to say to this.

We help support a tent village (which was recently booted off their public land two weeks ago because the McDonald's nearby complained). When I worked at the library, the people in charge were kind enough to allow a handful of people to shelter there in the winter. We support a small program called "feed my sheep" for one of the local schools because some parents in the area were not able to afford food for their children after school.

I don't know what you call poor, but in my mind "homeless and hungry" qualifies. Just because you do not personally know any poor people does not mean they don't exist. It doesn't mean they're not out there.

@mattbbpl:

Did this occur in the United States? If it did occur in the United States the news media does not care. They are more concerned about a supposedly infringement on the rights of GLTB's that the actual well being of people truly in need.