4 ms·

Well, I draw informed, qualitative conclusions which take quantitative data into account. I think everyone who read my comment understood what I left unsaid, e

Well, I draw informed, qualitative conclusions which take quantitative data into account. I think everyone who read my comment understood what I left unsaid, even if they didn't agree with it. And, as the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Just because an argument is logical and has facts doesn't mean it's correct. There are multiple ways to shape, work with, or interpret data. But, speaking of data, is the guy who's tweets you referenced - Ernie Tedeschi, a reliable source? Better or worse than, say, Alan Greenspan? What are his general biases? Same with the Bloomberg article. That article itself said "A rising but uneven tide - the late '10s weren't equally beneficial to all Americans." Plus, let's use Occam's razor. Which way does it cut? - Rent prices in major cities / economic hubs for non-tech workers. - Cost of healthcare in the US - Cost of higher education in the US - Cost of home ownership by major cities in the US. - Job security and availability of well-paying work for non-tech workers? - Is the economy benefitting those who need it most? - How equitably have the fruits of economic growth been distributed?

bhupy 6y ago
> There are multiple ways to shape, work with, or interpret data. This is correct, but no matter how you look at it, the data tells largely the same story. Maybe you think that the median paints an insufficient picture or you want to consider all quintiles including the bottom 2 -> https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-series/historical-income-households/h01ar.xlsx https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-ser... — there's been a real increase across all 5 quintiles, adjusted for inflation. Maybe you think that this doesn't account for housing/healthcare/education. But no matter which inflation index you use (each put different weights to housing, medical costs, education, etc), the adjusted median personal income is up. (And YES, this all accounts for all those things -> https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1308799186301747200 https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1308799186301747200) Maybe you think this is attributable to dual-income households. But when you ignore those and focus on single-income households, it's still up, and higher than boomer counterparts -> https://twitter.com/ernietedeschi/status/1308775197311467520 https://twitter.com/ernietedeschi/status/1308775197311467520 Maybe you think this is attributable to working more hours instead of actual wage increases. But hours worked is actually decreasing -> https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG Maybe this is all well and good, but the lower wages have stagnated, and that's what we should be talking about...except that has also not been true in the 2010's -> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/low-wage-workers-are-getting-bigger-raises-than-bosses/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/low-wage-workers-are-getting-bi... After a certain point, it's worth reflecting on whether you're imposing new constraints / explanations on the data for the sake of intellectual curiosity, or just because you really don't want to revisit prior conclusions. > But, speaking of data, is the guy who's tweets you referenced - Ernie Tedeschi, a reliable source? What are his general biases? He's a policy economist https://www.linkedin.com/in/ernie-tedeschi-74ba48b/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ernie-tedeschi-74ba48b/ who's worked for the US Treasury, who's focus is labor markets. His biases are no different from Piketty, Saez, or Zucman, who also have biases. What's more important is what to make of the data they cite.
- adamsea 6y ago
  I appreciate your response. To be honest it's a bit of chart/graph overload for me. If you've got the moment I'd appreciate and find helpful your take on this - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... Is the article talking about something different? Would you say they're incorrect? Is their data old? Etc. To me it seems they're arguing real wages haven't increased that much in the last 40 years. Also I just want to point out, that the very end of your article about wages increasing for low-wage workers, says: "That's not to say that low-paid workers have it easy. According to the Tax Policy Center, the bottom 20% of households are earning typical annual income of about $13,300. By comparison, the top 20% of U.S. households earn about $221,000 annually, or nearly 17 times more than the lowest quintile." My interpretation is, who cares if there's a 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr if neither of those is a decent living wage to begin with, and the folks at the top of the pyramid are just making staggering amounts of money? The top 20% averages $220K, the top 1% ... much much more. Which is a bit off-topic, but, at the end of the day economics itself is about people, otherwise there'd be no point! : )
  - bhupy 6y ago
    > Is the article talking about something different? Would you say they're incorrect? Is their data old? Etc. It's probably a combination of a couple things. 1) the article's editorializing of the data doesn't match up with the actual raw data -> https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N. This raw FRED data is basically as close to the "primary source" as you can get with this sort of thing. 2) the article looks at total benefits costs and compares them with total wages and salaries, which should set off a couple alarm bells: in the US total compensation is what we need to look at. Basically, they're double counting healthcare costs by ignoring the fact that employers pay the majority of premium costs (https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2019-section-6-worker-and-employer-contributions-for-premiums/attachment/figure-6-4-16/ https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2019-section-6-worke...), while also counting the full cost of those benefits against the after-wage dollar amounts. In other words, we've all been receiving huge phantom raises, and we just don't know it because it doesn't show up in our bank accounts. 3) They don't take into account taxes and transfers, which median earners broadly enjoy. To give you a sense, here's what the median disposable income looks like after taxes & transfers, by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Median https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c... > My interpretation is, who cares if there's a 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr if neither of those is a decent living wage to begin with, and the folks at the top of the pyramid are just making staggering amounts of money? Because that 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr tells us very little about a single earner's pay history — it presupposes that a single person stays at that level for the entirety of their life (which we know not to be true). Those numbers show us the snapshot-in-time income numbers for everyone currently at that salary level, but does not account for people actually moving income levels as they progress in their career. The data isn't "here's the life of Joe over the last 5 years", it's "here's the life of people without college degrees that are X years old with Y years of experience with X & Y held constant over 5 years". I suppose "the lowest quintile wage has modestly increased over time" has a different ring to it than "the entry level starting salary has modestly increased over time". Also, this is a bit more debatable, but one can also argue if it really matters if the people at the top are making staggering amounts of money, if people in the middle tier (again, not a static group) are also doing better, despite being of (predominately) lower skill — especially since that staggering increase at the top doesn't happen in a vacuum, it's because our system rewards those who play an outsized role in providing goods & services that increase our collective standards of living.

bhupy 6y ago

> There are multiple ways to shape, work with, or interpret data. This is correct, but no matter how you look at it, the data tells largely the same story. Maybe you think that the median paints an insufficient picture or you want to consider all quintiles including the bottom 2 -> https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-series/historical-income-households/h01ar.xlsx https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-ser... — there's been a real increase across all 5 quintiles, adjusted for inflation. Maybe you think that this doesn't account for housing/healthcare/education. But no matter which inflation index you use (each put different weights to housing, medical costs, education, etc), the adjusted median personal income is up. (And YES, this all accounts for all those things -> https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1308799186301747200 https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1308799186301747200) Maybe you think this is attributable to dual-income households. But when you ignore those and focus on single-income households, it's still up, and higher than boomer counterparts -> https://twitter.com/ernietedeschi/status/1308775197311467520 https://twitter.com/ernietedeschi/status/1308775197311467520 Maybe you think this is attributable to working more hours instead of actual wage increases. But hours worked is actually decreasing -> https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG Maybe this is all well and good, but the lower wages have stagnated, and that's what we should be talking about...except that has also not been true in the 2010's -> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/low-wage-workers-are-getting-bigger-raises-than-bosses/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/low-wage-workers-are-getting-bi... After a certain point, it's worth reflecting on whether you're imposing new constraints / explanations on the data for the sake of intellectual curiosity, or just because you really don't want to revisit prior conclusions. > But, speaking of data, is the guy who's tweets you referenced - Ernie Tedeschi, a reliable source? What are his general biases? He's a policy economist https://www.linkedin.com/in/ernie-tedeschi-74ba48b/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ernie-tedeschi-74ba48b/ who's worked for the US Treasury, who's focus is labor markets. His biases are no different from Piketty, Saez, or Zucman, who also have biases. What's more important is what to make of the data they cite.

adamsea 6y ago
I appreciate your response. To be honest it's a bit of chart/graph overload for me. If you've got the moment I'd appreciate and find helpful your take on this - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... Is the article talking about something different? Would you say they're incorrect? Is their data old? Etc. To me it seems they're arguing real wages haven't increased that much in the last 40 years. Also I just want to point out, that the very end of your article about wages increasing for low-wage workers, says: "That's not to say that low-paid workers have it easy. According to the Tax Policy Center, the bottom 20% of households are earning typical annual income of about $13,300. By comparison, the top 20% of U.S. households earn about $221,000 annually, or nearly 17 times more than the lowest quintile." My interpretation is, who cares if there's a 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr if neither of those is a decent living wage to begin with, and the folks at the top of the pyramid are just making staggering amounts of money? The top 20% averages $220K, the top 1% ... much much more. Which is a bit off-topic, but, at the end of the day economics itself is about people, otherwise there'd be no point! : )
- bhupy 6y ago
  > Is the article talking about something different? Would you say they're incorrect? Is their data old? Etc. It's probably a combination of a couple things. 1) the article's editorializing of the data doesn't match up with the actual raw data -> https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N. This raw FRED data is basically as close to the "primary source" as you can get with this sort of thing. 2) the article looks at total benefits costs and compares them with total wages and salaries, which should set off a couple alarm bells: in the US total compensation is what we need to look at. Basically, they're double counting healthcare costs by ignoring the fact that employers pay the majority of premium costs (https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2019-section-6-worker-and-employer-contributions-for-premiums/attachment/figure-6-4-16/ https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2019-section-6-worke...), while also counting the full cost of those benefits against the after-wage dollar amounts. In other words, we've all been receiving huge phantom raises, and we just don't know it because it doesn't show up in our bank accounts. 3) They don't take into account taxes and transfers, which median earners broadly enjoy. To give you a sense, here's what the median disposable income looks like after taxes & transfers, by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Median https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c... > My interpretation is, who cares if there's a 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr if neither of those is a decent living wage to begin with, and the folks at the top of the pyramid are just making staggering amounts of money? Because that 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr tells us very little about a single earner's pay history — it presupposes that a single person stays at that level for the entirety of their life (which we know not to be true). Those numbers show us the snapshot-in-time income numbers for everyone currently at that salary level, but does not account for people actually moving income levels as they progress in their career. The data isn't "here's the life of Joe over the last 5 years", it's "here's the life of people without college degrees that are X years old with Y years of experience with X & Y held constant over 5 years". I suppose "the lowest quintile wage has modestly increased over time" has a different ring to it than "the entry level starting salary has modestly increased over time". Also, this is a bit more debatable, but one can also argue if it really matters if the people at the top are making staggering amounts of money, if people in the middle tier (again, not a static group) are also doing better, despite being of (predominately) lower skill — especially since that staggering increase at the top doesn't happen in a vacuum, it's because our system rewards those who play an outsized role in providing goods & services that increase our collective standards of living.