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It's ironic that the US population has continuously voted to increases social welfare spending since the 1970s. Thanks to all of this socialism, the US now has

by Jabanga 10y ago

It's ironic that the US population has continuously voted to increases social welfare spending since the 1970s. Thanks to all of this socialism, the US now has lower labour productivity growth than anytime in the past century.

Synaesthesia 10y ago
Except for Reagan and Clinton's welfare cuts - and productivity has far outpaced the wages which workers have earned since the 70's.
- Jabanga 10y ago
  In the aggregate, there has been a huge increase in social welfare spending. I can show you the raw, inflation-adjusted statistics if you wish. What this means is that social welfare expansions have far outsized the cuts. >productivity has far outpaced the wages which workers have earned since the 70's. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where-has-all-the-income-gone https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where... >Almost all the benefits of economic growth since [the 1970s] have gone to a small number of people at the very top. —Robert Reich, Financial Times, Jan. 29, 2008 >Since the mid-1970s, however, income growth has been confined almost entirely to top earners. —Robert H. Frank, New York Times, March 9, 2008 >The modern American economy distributes the fruits of its growth to a relatively narrow slice of the population. —David Leonhardt, New York Times, April 9, 2008 ... >These statistics appear quite compelling, but hiding in the background are some key issues that might alter the story. Average household size declined substantially during the past 30 years, so household income is being spread across fewer people. The mix of household types—married versus single, young versus old—also changed considerably, so the “median household” in 2006 looks quite different from the “median household” in 1976. Finally, the measure of income used by the Census Bureau to compute household income excludes some rapidly growing sources of income. ... >Here is a preview of the key data issues that lead to the higher estimates of median household income growth. >The price index used by the Census Bureau overstates inflation, and thus understates income gains, relative to a preferred price index. >A changing mix of household types leads the overall median increase to understate the median increase of most household types. >The Census Bureau measure of household income understates income growth by excluding some rapidly growing sources of income. >The remaining difference between the 44 percent to 62 percent increase in median household incomes and the 80 percent increase in BEA personal income per person appears to be largely attributable to an increase in income inequality. The findings in this article are consistent with recent research showing that the largest income increases occurred at the top end of the income distribution. However, the findings here are not consistent with the view that the incomes of middle American households stagnated over the past 30 years. Income for most middle American households increased substantially. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stagnation/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stag...
  - kiliantics 10y ago
    So what's your point. Socialism was terrible for the economy but anyone who says wages stagnated is wrong because these stats show that income grew. So... socialism worked out? IMO, what happened since the 70s is that corporate capture of economic growth increased, often through government spending. Basically what's being called neoliberalism: austerity for most, government handouts for the wealthy.
    - Jabanga 10y ago
      >austerity for most, government handouts for the wealthy. It hasn't been austerity for most. I thought we just established that there has been a massive increase in social welfare spending. >So what's your point. My point is that wage growth has tracked productivity growth. Middle class wages have mostly tracked productivity growth. There has been a slowdown in wage growth, and this can be mostly attributed to a decrease in labour productivity growth. Other factors have played a role in the slowdown in middle class wage growth, but they are far outsized by the effect of slowing labour productivity growth. Those 'other factors' relate to government intervention, not to any mythical "neoliberalism" that the socialist consensus always harps on about as it further pushes the US into socialism.
cma 10y ago
That is actually remarkable given that women entered the workforce en-masse during that time. Rapidly increasing the work-force with the same basic needs being serviced and still having any per-worker productivity growth. Couldn't also have to do with the phase out of Bretton-Woods and the recovery of Europe from WWII during that time? And with all that social redistribution marginal-utility-wise productivity must be off the charts. $1 in additional purchased products for consumption sure provides a lot more utility to someone at the bottom than $1 in additional products does for a billionaire.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  It's not a matter of $1. In that case obviously your example is clear but what if you taxed that billionaire so much that he decided, "why bother" and he stopped investing, building firms and simply decided to live a life of ease in Mexico? The net utility in that case with the job losses and movement of capital it entails would be negative. Now take a look at the policies on the table. Bernie's medicare for all has a projected cost of 2.5 trillion dollars annually. If we taxed everyone who makes 1 million or more a year at 100% we would have about 1.5 trillion in receipts. It just isn't possible.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  The problem is most of the "redistribution" that actually happens in the US isn't from billionaires to peasants, it's from doctors and engineers to retail workers. Or from factory workers and truck drivers to themselves, but with a huge list of strings attached to what the money can be used for.
- Jabanga 10y ago
  >That is actually remarkable given that women entered the workforce en-masse during that time. The labour participation rate went from 60 percent in 1970 to 66 percent in 1992. At the same time, average hours worked per employed person declined from about 1900 hours a year in 1970 to 1790 hours a year in 1992: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAAHWEP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAAHWEP So there was no relative growth in the size of the work force. Socialism destroys the economy. Believe it or not, forcibly confiscating the earnings of highly productive people, to give without discrimination to less productive people, is poison to an economy. And that is all social welfarism amounts to: https://youtu.be/arOGHY27JwI https://youtu.be/arOGHY27JwI Leftist authoritarianism that destroys incentives and breeds dependency. But hey it's politically fashionable to defend welfare, because it makes it look like you stick up for the underdog, so that's what the majority will continue to do. Any politician that promises more government "help", from the pocket of the faceless taxpayer, will have a major advantage in any election. That's why social welfare spending has increased so dramatically over the last 50 years.
DarkKomunalec 10y ago
Labour productivity growth sure is a strange metric to highlight - why don't we look at just plain old labour productivity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OECD_Productivity_levels_2007.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OECD_Productivity_levels_... The US is ranked 7th in the OECD, but only Luxembourg and Norway have substantially higher labour productivity, while the top 3-7 countries are virtually tied.
- Jabanga 10y ago
  Growth is how much something improves by. Socialism doesn't destroy the knowledge that has been built up. It destroys the ability of society to accumulate new knowledge.

by Jabanga 10y ago

Synaesthesia 10y ago

Except for Reagan and Clinton's welfare cuts - and productivity has far outpaced the wages which workers have earned since the 70's.

Jabanga 10y ago
In the aggregate, there has been a huge increase in social welfare spending. I can show you the raw, inflation-adjusted statistics if you wish. What this means is that social welfare expansions have far outsized the cuts. >productivity has far outpaced the wages which workers have earned since the 70's. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where-has-all-the-income-gone https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where... >Almost all the benefits of economic growth since [the 1970s] have gone to a small number of people at the very top. —Robert Reich, Financial Times, Jan. 29, 2008 >Since the mid-1970s, however, income growth has been confined almost entirely to top earners. —Robert H. Frank, New York Times, March 9, 2008 >The modern American economy distributes the fruits of its growth to a relatively narrow slice of the population. —David Leonhardt, New York Times, April 9, 2008 ... >These statistics appear quite compelling, but hiding in the background are some key issues that might alter the story. Average household size declined substantially during the past 30 years, so household income is being spread across fewer people. The mix of household types—married versus single, young versus old—also changed considerably, so the “median household” in 2006 looks quite different from the “median household” in 1976. Finally, the measure of income used by the Census Bureau to compute household income excludes some rapidly growing sources of income. ... >Here is a preview of the key data issues that lead to the higher estimates of median household income growth. >The price index used by the Census Bureau overstates inflation, and thus understates income gains, relative to a preferred price index. >A changing mix of household types leads the overall median increase to understate the median increase of most household types. >The Census Bureau measure of household income understates income growth by excluding some rapidly growing sources of income. >The remaining difference between the 44 percent to 62 percent increase in median household incomes and the 80 percent increase in BEA personal income per person appears to be largely attributable to an increase in income inequality. The findings in this article are consistent with recent research showing that the largest income increases occurred at the top end of the income distribution. However, the findings here are not consistent with the view that the incomes of middle American households stagnated over the past 30 years. Income for most middle American households increased substantially. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stagnation/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stag...
- kiliantics 10y ago
  So what's your point. Socialism was terrible for the economy but anyone who says wages stagnated is wrong because these stats show that income grew. So... socialism worked out? IMO, what happened since the 70s is that corporate capture of economic growth increased, often through government spending. Basically what's being called neoliberalism: austerity for most, government handouts for the wealthy.
  - Jabanga 10y ago
    >austerity for most, government handouts for the wealthy. It hasn't been austerity for most. I thought we just established that there has been a massive increase in social welfare spending. >So what's your point. My point is that wage growth has tracked productivity growth. Middle class wages have mostly tracked productivity growth. There has been a slowdown in wage growth, and this can be mostly attributed to a decrease in labour productivity growth. Other factors have played a role in the slowdown in middle class wage growth, but they are far outsized by the effect of slowing labour productivity growth. Those 'other factors' relate to government intervention, not to any mythical "neoliberalism" that the socialist consensus always harps on about as it further pushes the US into socialism.

cma 10y ago

That is actually remarkable given that women entered the workforce en-masse during that time. Rapidly increasing the work-force with the same basic needs being serviced and still having any per-worker productivity growth. Couldn't also have to do with the phase out of Bretton-Woods and the recovery of Europe from WWII during that time? And with all that social redistribution marginal-utility-wise productivity must be off the charts. $1 in additional purchased products for consumption sure provides a lot more utility to someone at the bottom than $1 in additional products does for a billionaire.

cmdrfred 10y ago
It's not a matter of $1. In that case obviously your example is clear but what if you taxed that billionaire so much that he decided, "why bother" and he stopped investing, building firms and simply decided to live a life of ease in Mexico? The net utility in that case with the job losses and movement of capital it entails would be negative. Now take a look at the policies on the table. Bernie's medicare for all has a projected cost of 2.5 trillion dollars annually. If we taxed everyone who makes 1 million or more a year at 100% we would have about 1.5 trillion in receipts. It just isn't possible.
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
The problem is most of the "redistribution" that actually happens in the US isn't from billionaires to peasants, it's from doctors and engineers to retail workers. Or from factory workers and truck drivers to themselves, but with a huge list of strings attached to what the money can be used for.
Jabanga 10y ago
>That is actually remarkable given that women entered the workforce en-masse during that time. The labour participation rate went from 60 percent in 1970 to 66 percent in 1992. At the same time, average hours worked per employed person declined from about 1900 hours a year in 1970 to 1790 hours a year in 1992: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAAHWEP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAAHWEP So there was no relative growth in the size of the work force. Socialism destroys the economy. Believe it or not, forcibly confiscating the earnings of highly productive people, to give without discrimination to less productive people, is poison to an economy. And that is all social welfarism amounts to: https://youtu.be/arOGHY27JwI https://youtu.be/arOGHY27JwI Leftist authoritarianism that destroys incentives and breeds dependency. But hey it's politically fashionable to defend welfare, because it makes it look like you stick up for the underdog, so that's what the majority will continue to do. Any politician that promises more government "help", from the pocket of the faceless taxpayer, will have a major advantage in any election. That's why social welfare spending has increased so dramatically over the last 50 years.

DarkKomunalec 10y ago

Labour productivity growth sure is a strange metric to highlight - why don't we look at just plain old labour productivity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OECD_Productivity_levels_2007.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OECD_Productivity_levels_... The US is ranked 7th in the OECD, but only Luxembourg and Norway have substantially higher labour productivity, while the top 3-7 countries are virtually tied.

Jabanga 10y ago
Growth is how much something improves by. Socialism doesn't destroy the knowledge that has been built up. It destroys the ability of society to accumulate new knowledge.