Why do people become homeless in California?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/us/california-homeless-people-stories.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/us/california-homeless-people-stories.html
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Top charts of 2019: Thirteen charts that clarify what our economic priorities need to be in 2020
Top charts of 2019: Thirteen charts that clarify what our economic priorities need to be in 2020: We’re in the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, but the top line numbers don’t tell the whole truth. Low unemployment is finally starting to produce some wage gains, but it is going to take much more to raise living standards for wide swaths of the workforce. Black unemployment and underemployment is still too high,…
Friday, January 17, 2020
The Truth About the Trump Economy
The Truth About the Trump Economy
Jan 17, 2020 JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ
It is becoming conventional wisdom that US President Donald Trump will be tough to beat in November, because, whatever reservations about him voters may have, he has been good for the American economy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is becoming conventional wisdom that US President Donald Trump will be tough to beat in November, because, whatever reservations about him voters may have, he has been good for the American economy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Two years ago, a few rare corporate leaders were concerned about climate change, or upset at Trump’s misogyny and bigotry. Most, however, were celebrating the president’s tax cuts for billionaires and corporations and looking forward to his efforts to deregulate the economy. That would allow businesses to pollute the air more, get more Americans hooked on opioids, entice more children to eat their diabetes-inducing foods, and engage in the sort of financial shenanigans that brought on the 2008 crisis.
Today, many corporate bosses are still talking about the continued GDP growth and record stock prices. But neither GDP nor the Dow is a good measure of economic performance. Neither tells us what’s happening to ordinary citizens’ living standards or anything about sustainability. In fact, US economic performance over the past four years is Exhibit A in the indictment against relying on these indicators.
To get a good reading on a country’s economic health, start by looking at the health of its citizens. If they are happy and prosperous, they will be healthy and live longer. Among developed countries, America sits at the bottom in this regard. US life expectancy, already relatively low, fell in each of the first two years of Trump’s presidency, and in 2017, midlife mortality reached its highest rate since World War II. This is not a surprise, because no president has worked harder to make sure that more Americans lack health insurance. Millions have lost their coverage, and the uninsured rate has risen, in just two years, from 10.9% to 13.7%.
One reason for declining life expectancy in America is what Anne Case and Nobel laureate economist Angus Deaton call deaths of despair, caused by alcohol, drug overdoses, and suicide. In 2017 (the most recent year for which good data are available), such deaths stood at almost four times their 1999 level.
The only time I have seen anything like these declines in health – outside of war or epidemics – was when I was chief economist of the World Bank and found out that mortality and morbidity data confirmed what our economic indicators suggested about the dismal state of the post-Soviet Russian economy.
Trump may be a good president for the top 1% – and especially for the top 0.1% – but he has not been good for everyone else. If fully implemented, the 2017 tax cut will result in tax increases for most households in the second, third, and fourth income quintiles.
Given tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the ultrarich and corporations, it should come as no surprise that there was no significant change in the median US household’s disposable income between 2017 and 2018 (again, the most recent year with good data). The lion’s share of the increase in GDP is also going to those at the top. Real median weekly earnings are just 2.6% above their level when Trump took office. And these increases have not offset long periods of wage stagnation. For example, the median wage of a full-time male worker (and those with full-time jobs are the lucky ones) is still more than 3% below what it was 40 years ago. Nor has there been much progress on reducing racial disparities: in the third quarter of 2019, median weekly earnings for black men working full-time were less than three-quarters the level for white men.
Making matters worse, the growth that has occurred is not environmentally sustainable – and even less so thanks to the Trump administration’s gutting of regulations that have passed stringent cost-benefit analyses. The air will be less breathable, the water less drinkable, and the planet more subject to climate change. In fact, losses related to climate change have already reached new highs in the US, which has suffered more property damage than any other country – reaching some 1.5% of GDP in 2017.
The tax cuts were supposed to spur a new wave of investment. Instead, they triggered an all-time record binge of share buybacks – some $800 billion in 2018 – by some of America’s most profitable companies, and led to record peacetime deficits (almost $1 trillion in fiscal 2019) in a country supposedly near full employment. And even with weak investment, the US had to borrow massively abroad: the most recent data show foreign borrowing at nearly $500 billion a year, with an increase of more than 10% in America’s net indebtedness position in one year alone.
Likewise, Trump’s trade wars, for all their sound and fury, have not reduced the US trade deficit, which was one-quarter higher in 2018 than it was in 2016. The 2018 goods deficit was the largest on record. Even the deficit in trade with China was up almost a quarter from 2016. The US did get a new North American trade agreement, without the investment agreement provisions that the Business Roundtable wanted, without the provisions raising drug prices that the pharmaceutical companies wanted, and with better labor and environmental provisions. Trump, a self-proclaimed master deal maker, lost on almost every front in his negotiations with congressional Democrats, resulting in a slightly improved trade arrangement.
And despite Trump’s vaunted promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, the increase in manufacturing employment is still lower than it was under his predecessor, Barack Obama, once the post-2008 recovery set in, and is still markedly below its pre-crisis level. Even the unemployment rate, at a 50-year low, masks economic fragility. The employment rate for working-age males and females, while rising, has increased less than during the Obama recovery, and is still significantly below that of other developed countries. The pace of job creation is also markedly slower than it was under Obama.
Again, the low employment rate is not a surprise, not least because unhealthy people can’t work. Moreover, those on disability benefits, in prison – the US incarceration rate has increased more than sixfold since 1970, with some two million people currently behind bars – or so discouraged that they are not actively seeking jobs are not counted as “unemployed.” But, of course, they are not employed. Nor is it a surprise that a country that doesn’t provide affordable childcare or guarantee family leave would have lower female employment – adjusted for population, more than ten percentage points lower – than other developed countries.
Even judging by GDP, the Trump economy falls short. Last quarter’s growth was just 2.1%, far less than the 4%, 5%, or even 6% Trump promised to deliver, and even less than the 2.4% average of Obama’s second term. That is a remarkably poor performance considering the stimulus provided by the $1 trillion deficit and ultra-low interest rates. This is not an accident, or just a matter of bad luck: Trump’s brand is uncertainty, volatility, and prevarication, whereas trust, stability, and confidence are essential for growth. So is equality, according to the International Monetary Fund.
So, Trump deserves failing grades not just on essential tasks like upholding democracy and preserving our planet. He should not get a pass on the economy, either.
Writing for PS since 2001
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is University Professor at Columbia University and Chief Economist at the Roosevelt Institute. His most recent book is People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent.
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Two Years Later: What Has Trump’s Tax Law Delivered?
Two Years Later: What Has Trump’s Tax Law Delivered?
Since the law’s passage, the federal government has seen the largest year-over-year drop in corporate tax revenue outside of a recession.
1968: Strategy for Winning Economic Rights
An important essay from 1968. The essence of current debates.
Fascism Expert: Trump Has Laid the Groundwork for “Full-On Authoritarian Rule”
Fascism Expert: Trump Has Laid the Groundwork for “Full-On Authoritarian Rule”
Monday, January 13, 2020
How is The Official Unemployment Rate 3.8% When 37% of the U.S is Unemployed?
How is The Official Unemployment Rate 3.8% When 37% of the U.S is Unemployed?
Roamy.
When I turn on the news these days it seems that there are few reasons to smile, but I have to say- the consistent Unemployment Rate decrease has been a steady source of satisfaction for me.
That is until today- when I found out that the Unemployment Rate is basically just a made up number.
I mean not really, but the Unemployment Rate is not, in any way, an accurate representation of the percentage of the U.S that is actually unemployed.
The Official U.S Unemployment Rate
“People are classified as Unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.” -bls.gov
So, there are 3 conditions that must be true in order to meet the official definition of Unemployed. If you haven’t actively searched for work in the last 4 weeks (maybe you’ve been in school or maybe you’ve been looking online but haven’t applied for a job yet) you don’t count as Unemployed according to the official definition. You don’t get counted as employed, obviously, either. You actually don’t get counted at all.
Data from bls.gov
· This is very good. Regardless of the relevance of the number, a low Unemployment Rate is better than a high Unemployment Rate.
· The Unemployment Rate has been declining for years and the trend looks like it will continue. Even if the number is not representative of the total Unemployed population, the steadily declining trend is a good thing.
Labor Force Participation Rate
A much better indicator of the total portion of the population that is actually unemployed is the Labor Force Participation Rate.
According to the BLS, the Labor Force Participation Rate defines the “Labor Force” as everyone eligible to work (all people over the age of 16 who are not in jail, in a nursing home, in some other institution, or in the Armed Services) and defines “Employed” as anyone who worked in the last week.
Anyone in the Labor Force who is not Employed is Unemployed, simple.
Data from bls.gov
So, 37% of the population could get a job but they can’t find a job or can’t get someone to give them a job because maybe they aren’t qualified enough.
That’s 37% of the population unemployed versus the 3.8% the government has been blabbing about for months now.
Friday, January 3, 2020
Best Year Ever - Can You Believe It ?
Best Year Ever. Can you believe it?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/opinion/sunday/2019-best-year-poverty.html?
Nicholas Kristof
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Mayor Pete vs. AOC on Religious Left Values
Mayor Pete vs. AOC on Religious Left Values: Rolling Stone says the religious left should welcome Pete Buttigieg’s ‘public embrace of Christianity,’ but AOC’s ‘love thy neighbor’ politics reflects the Catholic Worker roots of democratic socialism.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Trump Tax Cuts- Corporations Pay Less - You and I Pay More
How Big Companies Won New Tax Breaks From the Trump Administration
As the Treasury Department prepared to enact the 2017 Republican tax overhaul, corporate lobbyists swarmed — and won big.
By Jesse Drucker and Jim Tankersley
· Dec. 30, 2019
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