The economic boon in jobs creation in America

[Value Buy]

Many people feel America is not producing jobs in a large enough number as Trump talks about.
This article discusses the jobs that have been created and where they are.
Seems the heartland and Trump areas of politcal followers are seeing job increases. The democratic side, has some new jobs, but not as many. Article does say the average job in Trump areas does not pay as much as in democratic areas. Might have something to do with the fact of Union numbers or is simply higher cost of living areas where people have to make more money to pay to live there.....

www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/jobs-are-booming-in-trump-country-but-pay-lags/ar-AAB1pGP?li=BBnbfcL 


I think everyone has to understand if you are now hired and still working at the same job in 2020, that bodes well for Trump's re-election.

[happyhoix]

How much as the average middle class paycheck gone up in the last two decades? In the last two years?

Used to be, one good paying job supported a family and provided insurance. Then, both parents needed jobs. Now, you can work three jobs, still be lower middle class and still not have health insurance.

I think the GOP needs to understand how many voters are working really hard and feel like they're running in place.

[Value Buy]

May 7, 2019 14:26:22 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

How much as the average middle class paycheck gone up in the last two decades? In the last two years?

Used to be, one good paying job supported a family and provided insurance. Then, both parents needed jobs. Now, you can work three jobs, still be lower middle class and still not have health insurance.

I think the GOP needs to understand how many voters are working really hard and feel like they're running in place.

You are living in the past.
After about 1980 many women were in the workforce with part time jobs to make ends meet.
After 1990 women were starting to become a force in the full time workforce to make ends meet.

From the late sixties on, women went into the workforce to beat inflation increases. After 1980 it was to support an expanding expensive lifestyle.
The country will never go back to those days unless we all give up multiple yearly vacations, $1,000 cellphones and one or two tv's per household, Two hundred dollar sneakers, cable tv, and move back into 3 bedroom, 1,200 sq ft ranch homes, two or three vehicles, and start gardening again. 
Different lifestyle expectations, different era.
Nafta gutted the middle class, and both political parties were guilty of this.

[djAdvocate]

May 7, 2019 14:40:46 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

May 7, 2019 14:26:22 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

How much as the average middle class paycheck gone up in the last two decades? In the last two years?

Used to be, one good paying job supported a family and provided insurance. Then, both parents needed jobs. Now, you can work three jobs, still be lower middle class and still not have health insurance.

I think the GOP needs to understand how many voters are working really hard and feel like they're running in place.

You are living in the past.
After about 1980 many women were in the workforce with part time jobs to make ends meet.
After 1990 women were starting to become a force in the full time workforce to make ends meet.

From the late sixties on, women went into the workforce to beat inflation increases. After 1980 it was to support an expanding expensive lifestyle.
The country will never go back to those days unless we all give up multiple yearly vacations, $1,000 cellphones and one or two tv's per household, Two hundred dollar sneakers, cable tv, and move back into 3 bedroom, 1,200 sq ft ranch homes, two or three vehicles, and start gardening again. 
Different lifestyle expectations, different era.

I agree with everything you said here, and fervently disagree with your last statement.  NAFTA has nothing to do with middle class woes.  more people benefitted from it than did not.  the problem is way more complex than NAFTA.

computers have more to do with what has happened than NAFTA.

[Tiny]

How is Happyhoix is living in the past?      Is the future having households where parents and kids have to work and contribute to the household to get ahead  (which is kind of like going to the past...)   Is that what you mean?   

[happyhoix]

May 7, 2019 14:40:46 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

May 7, 2019 14:26:22 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

How much as the average middle class paycheck gone up in the last two decades? In the last two years?

Used to be, one good paying job supported a family and provided insurance. Then, both parents needed jobs. Now, you can work three jobs, still be lower middle class and still not have health insurance.

I think the GOP needs to understand how many voters are working really hard and feel like they're running in place.

You are living in the past.
After about 1980 many women were in the workforce with part time jobs to make ends meet.
After 1990 women were starting to become a force in the full time workforce to make ends meet.

From the late sixties on, women went into the workforce to beat inflation increases. After 1980 it was to support an expanding expensive lifestyle.
The country will never go back to those days unless we all give up multiple yearly vacations, $1,000 cellphones and one or two tv's per household, Two hundred dollar sneakers, cable tv, and move back into 3 bedroom, 1,200 sq ft ranch homes, two or three vehicles, and start gardening again. 
Different lifestyle expectations, different era.
Nafta gutted the middle class, and both political parties were guilty of this.

 Nope.

After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today.

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

It isn't that we live a more extravagant lifestyle now.  Middle class wages (and purchasing power) has remained stagnant.

Of course, if you're wealthy, you're riding high on the hog. We've got the biggest wealth gap since the Roaring 20's.  The richest 400 Americans have tripled their wealth since the early 1980's, and now own more than the bottom 60% of Americans, who have seen their share of the pie shrink to 2.1% in the same time period.

Yes - 400 families own more than 60% of the country does.

www.axios.com/wealth-gap-richest-americans-roaring-twenties-938b8a27-bf7b-4392-b4ae-41b84bef2002.html

Now, who do you think Trump's big tax break for the wealthy  mostly benefited? Here's a hint - not his blue collar trumpettes.

I don't think that level of disparity is something to celebrate, do you?

[djAdvocate]

May 7, 2019 17:24:27 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

May 7, 2019 14:40:46 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

You are living in the past.
After about 1980 many women were in the workforce with part time jobs to make ends meet.
After 1990 women were starting to become a force in the full time workforce to make ends meet.

From the late sixties on, women went into the workforce to beat inflation increases. After 1980 it was to support an expanding expensive lifestyle.
The country will never go back to those days unless we all give up multiple yearly vacations, $1,000 cellphones and one or two tv's per household, Two hundred dollar sneakers, cable tv, and move back into 3 bedroom, 1,200 sq ft ranch homes, two or three vehicles, and start gardening again. 
Different lifestyle expectations, different era.
Nafta gutted the middle class, and both political parties were guilty of this.

 Nope.

After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today.

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

It isn't that we live a more extravagant lifestyle now.  Middle class wages (and purchasing power) has remained stagnant.

Of course, if you're wealthy, you're riding high on the hog. We've got the biggest wealth gap since the Roaring 20's.  The richest 400 Americans have tripled their wealth since the early 1980's, and now own more than the bottom 60% of Americans, who have seen their share of the pie shrink to 2.1% in the same time period.

Yes - 400 families own more than 60% of the country does.

www.axios.com/wealth-gap-richest-americans-roaring-twenties-938b8a27-bf7b-4392-b4ae-41b84bef2002.html

Now, who do you think Trump's big tax break for the wealthy  mostly benefited? Here's a hint - not his blue collar trumpettes.

I don't think that level of disparity is something to celebrate, do you?

and all of that would be fine, except for one thing:

between 1825 and 1975, middle class earnings rose along with worker productivity.  and therefore, FIVE GENERATIONS of Americans came to expect that they would have a more comfortable life than their parents.  that all came to a crashing halt in 1975, and we have been stuck there for nearly half a century.  and there a lot of complicated reasons.  but they have nothing to do with trade.

in order to make a better life, Americans have done weird shit to their lifestyles since 1975.  the first change was putting more women in the workforce, and having fewer stay at home parents.  this basically destroyed what we used to think of as family life prior to 1975.  when those wages ALSO didn't keep up with our ideals of increasing prosperity, we used HELOCS.  that's right: we BORROWED the money (that we were not getting paid by corporate America- and ironically and sadistically, we borrowed it FROM corporate America) to create more prosperity, until 2008, when it all came crashing down.  unless we want to bring back child labor (which, I kid you not, some Republicans are advocating), there is no way forward other than wage growth.

I doubt that will happen.  and that means that the last generation and every generation in the future will not be better off than their parents- UNLESS they have the good fortune to be in the top quintile of income.  the 80% will see their fortunes decline.

[djAdvocate]

PS- it is great to see someone talk with such lucidity about the state of our economy.

thanks, happyhoix . you give me hope.

until EVERY AMERICAN understands what you posted, we have little chance of fixing it.

edit: nobody is WRONG to expect more out of life than their parents have.

it is "the American Dream".

unless you think it is not only dead, but should be dead.

[hurley1980]

May 7, 2019 14:40:46 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

May 7, 2019 14:26:22 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

How much as the average middle class paycheck gone up in the last two decades? In the last two years?

Used to be, one good paying job supported a family and provided insurance. Then, both parents needed jobs. Now, you can work three jobs, still be lower middle class and still not have health insurance.

I think the GOP needs to understand how many voters are working really hard and feel like they're running in place.

You are living in the past.
After about 1980 many women were in the workforce with part time jobs to make ends meet.
After 1990 women were starting to become a force in the full time workforce to make ends meet.

From the late sixties on, women went into the workforce to beat inflation increases. After 1980 it was to support an expanding expensive lifestyle.
The country will never go back to those days unless we all give up multiple yearly vacations, $1,000 cellphones and one or two tv's per household, Two hundred dollar sneakers, cable tv, and move back into 3 bedroom, 1,200 sq ft ranch homes, two or three vehicles, and start gardening again. 
Different lifestyle expectations, different era.
Nafta gutted the middle class, and both political parties were guilty of this.

I don't take yearly vacations.  I haven't had one in years, and only then was I able to pay for it because of generous overtime that is not regularly offered. I have MetroPCS, and a 3 year old phone I paid $90 for.  I do have 2 tvs (ooooh, I must be rich!!!), don't own a pair of shoes I've paid more than $40 for, no cable TV, and I already live in an 1100sf 3/1 house.  I'm already back in those days, and I'm barely middle class.  I also have no family.  If I had a spouse and kids, even with all of the sacrifices above, someone else in the house would have to get another job!

[steff]

This month I have been shredding boxes of old bills, paperwork & check stubs.  I can tell you exactly how much my husband's wages have increased since 1998.  In that time period, I can also tell you which position he was working as he worked his way up in the company to management.  I also shredded 18 years of tax returns, so I saw exactly how much his base pay & take home pay changed. 

from 1998-2004 he moved up from working on the line (production factory) to supervisor and his pay went up an average of about $250 a week over that time. 

2004-2008 he starts working up the supervisor ladder.  The pay doesn't drastically change, but he does become salaried, so the checks no longer fluctuate.  Average pay increase in that time is $150 a week.  His bonus percentage goes from 1% to 3% (of 25% of his yearly pay~weird system that I'm still figuring out all these years later)

2008-2016 (the last year of physical pay check stubs) his pay went up a total $200 a week over EIGHT years.  This included moving up from shift supervisor to floor supervisor to floor superintendent.  He's 2nd in line in the production dept food chain, but there has never been a drastic pay increase. 

2016-now pay has been completely stagnant. 

The one very large benefit that moving up the food chain was his company paying for him to go to school.  It's was promised in 2010.  He finally went this year, he's there now.  NINE years & it took him looking into tranfering to a different plant to get them to guarantee he would be sent this year.  We are hopeful that this will be what finally gets him the large bump in pay, but we've learned not to hold our breath.  No it's not a 4 year school, it's 4 months of intensive classes & a certificate in his industry.  The school is the top school in the world for his industry.  He's been gone since January & will be home end of this month. 

so in 20 years, his pay has increased $600 a week.  And he's done it the old fashioned, work for the same company, work your way up the ladder, "real American" way and the pay doesn't really reflect that. 

[djAdvocate]

disclosure: I am a 10%-er.

my pay has gone up about 8-fold in 30 years.

so, yeah. this is a microcosm of the problem.

the 90% have gone nowhere, and the 10% are building castles.

note: I am not saying this to brag, just to state the facts.

[steff]

and a fun little side note.  Today he & his roommate come home for lunch from school to find an eviction notice on their door.  The 4 billion dollar company they work for didn't pay the rent on time & are refusing to pay the late fees on 7 apartments they rented.  They finally had to cave because they couldn't put the 14 guys they sent up there this year into hotels for the next 3 weeks. 

[djAdvocate]

May 7, 2019 20:01:26 GMT -5 steff said:

and a fun little side note.  Today he & his roommate come home for lunch from school to find an eviction notice on their door.  The 4 billion dollar company they work for didn't pay the rent on time & are refusing to pay the late fees on 7 apartments they rented.  They finally had to cave because they couldn't put the 14 guys they sent up there this year into hotels for the next 3 weeks. 

does he work for the Trump Corporation?

[steff]

May 7, 2019 20:06:27 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

May 7, 2019 20:01:26 GMT -5 steff said:

and a fun little side note.  Today he & his roommate come home for lunch from school to find an eviction notice on their door.  The 4 billion dollar company they work for didn't pay the rent on time & are refusing to pay the late fees on 7 apartments they rented.  They finally had to cave because they couldn't put the 14 guys they sent up there this year into hotels for the next 3 weeks. 

does he work for the Trump Corporation?

thankfully NO! Although in 2016 they did try to slip in a "mandatory" monthly donation to a political PAC (Republican of course) until everyone started raising hell over it.  It then became voluntary. 

  Hubby did say the regional big wig he talked to was livid & saying heads were going to roll because this was bullshit/embarrassing/humiliating for a company their size. They had 14 guys all calling their plants across the country & no one had a clue what was going on because no one knew who was paying the bills for these guys.  Hubby was the one who had the cell phone number of his regional big wig & called him to get him to figure out what was going on.  The rent was paid in full w/ late fees this afternoon. 

[weltschmerz]

May 7, 2019 18:02:30 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

May 7, 2019 17:24:27 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

 Nope.

After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today.

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

It isn't that we live a more extravagant lifestyle now.  Middle class wages (and purchasing power) has remained stagnant.

Of course, if you're wealthy, you're riding high on the hog. We've got the biggest wealth gap since the Roaring 20's.  The richest 400 Americans have tripled their wealth since the early 1980's, and now own more than the bottom 60% of Americans, who have seen their share of the pie shrink to 2.1% in the same time period.

Yes - 400 families own more than 60% of the country does.

www.axios.com/wealth-gap-richest-americans-roaring-twenties-938b8a27-bf7b-4392-b4ae-41b84bef2002.html

Now, who do you think Trump's big tax break for the wealthy  mostly benefited? Here's a hint - not his blue collar trumpettes.

I don't think that level of disparity is something to celebrate, do you?

and all of that would be fine, except for one thing:

between 1825 and 1975, middle class earnings rose along with worker productivity.  and therefore, FIVE GENERATIONS of Americans came to expect that they would have a more comfortable life than their parents.  that all came to a crashing halt in 1975, and we have been stuck there for nearly half a century.  and there a lot of complicated reasons.  but they have nothing to do with trade.

in order to make a better life, Americans have done weird shit to their lifestyles since 1975.  the first change was putting more women in the workforce, and having fewer stay at home parents.  this basically destroyed what we used to think of as family life prior to 1975.  when those wages ALSO didn't keep up with our ideals of increasing prosperity, we used HELOCS.  that's right: we BORROWED the money (that we were not getting paid by corporate America- and ironically and sadistically, we borrowed it FROM corporate America) to create more prosperity, until 2008, when it all came crashing down.  unless we want to bring back child labor (which, I kid you not, some Republicans are advocating), there is no way forward other than wage growth.

I doubt that will happen.  and that means that the last generation and every generation in the future will not be better off than their parents- UNLESS they have the good fortune to be in the top quintile of income.  the 80% will see their fortunes decline.

Wait.....women getting out of the kitchen and into the work force is "weird shit"?

[djAdvocate]

May 7, 2019 21:38:48 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

May 7, 2019 18:02:30 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

and all of that would be fine, except for one thing:

between 1825 and 1975, middle class earnings rose along with worker productivity.  and therefore, FIVE GENERATIONS of Americans came to expect that they would have a more comfortable life than their parents.  that all came to a crashing halt in 1975, and we have been stuck there for nearly half a century.  and there a lot of complicated reasons.  but they have nothing to do with trade.

in order to make a better life, Americans have done weird shit to their lifestyles since 1975.  the first change was putting more women in the workforce, and having fewer stay at home parents.  this basically destroyed what we used to think of as family life prior to 1975.  when those wages ALSO didn't keep up with our ideals of increasing prosperity, we used HELOCS.  that's right: we BORROWED the money (that we were not getting paid by corporate America- and ironically and sadistically, we borrowed it FROM corporate America) to create more prosperity, until 2008, when it all came crashing down.  unless we want to bring back child labor (which, I kid you not, some Republicans are advocating), there is no way forward other than wage growth.

I doubt that will happen.  and that means that the last generation and every generation in the future will not be better off than their parents- UNLESS they have the good fortune to be in the top quintile of income.  the 80% will see their fortunes decline.

Wait.....women getting out of the kitchen and into the work force is "weird shit"?

when it is NECESSARY for two parents to work to obtain a better standard of living (rather than higher pay), yes.  I would call that weird.

I do the kitchen work, for the record.  so, I object to you feminizing domestic chores.

[OldCoyote]

Steff, Why did he stay there??

[OldCoyote]

Unlike DJ,, I am in the top 99%  I have no problem with making enough money?

As many names as I have been called here,, referring to my intelligence or the lack of,,,,

If I have no problem making money,,, all of you should be Zillionaires!!

[djAdvocate]

May 7, 2019 22:02:48 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

Unlike DJ,, I am in the top 99% 

uh,,,,,what?

I think we are both in the top 99%, bro.

[OldCoyote]

For those of you with your extreme intelligence,,, How comes you are not much richer than Trump,,,, for how dumb he is??

Hmmmm, maybe we hit on reality facts!

Yea I know,, his dad give to him,,, well he has not lost it.

As for you dad gave each of you a quarter ,,,annnnd you lost it!!

[djAdvocate]

May 7, 2019 22:10:20 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

For those of you with your extreme intelligence,,, How comes you are not much richer than Trump,,,, for how dumb he is??

Hmmmm, maybe we hit on reality facts!

first of all, I never claimed to have extreme intelligence.

in fact, I have OFTEN claimed that I am the stupidest poster on the board.

I say that because I have no reason to believe that anyone here is dumber than me.

second, although I am sure you intended your question to be rhetorical, there is a very good reason.  Trump got almost half a billion dollars from his father.  I got NOTHING from mine.  ZERO.  ZIP.  you get it?

I BORROWED $X from a bank in 1992, and I turned that $X into an amount that is roughly 100x that amount.

Trump got $1/2B from his dad, and he has what?  $10B?  maybe.  I doubt it, actually.  but that is 20x.  and he is a fucking geezer compared to me.  I am nowhere near old enough to collect social security.  who knows how much I will have by the time I am that old, if God and providence allow me to live that long.

so, yeah, I have done way fucking better than Trump, despite being a dumbass.

and that should tell you something about Trump.  but I am sure you will try to make it about me.  again.  very tiresome.

[OldCoyote]

May 7, 2019 22:17:34 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

May 7, 2019 22:10:20 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

For those of you with your extreme intelligence,,, How comes you are not much richer than Trump,,,, for how dumb he is??

Hmmmm, maybe we hit on reality facts!

first of all, I never claimed to have extreme intelligence.

in fact, I have OFTEN claimed that I am the stupidest poster on the board.

I say that because I have no reason to believe that anyone here is dumber than me.

second, although I am sure you intended your question to be rhetorical, there is a very good reason.  Trump got almost half a billion dollars from his father.  I got NOTHING from mine.  ZERO.  ZIP.  you get it?

I BORROWED $X from a bank in 1992, and I turned that $X into an amount that is roughly 100x that amount.

Trump got $1/2B from his dad, and he has what?  $10B?  maybe.  I doubt it, actually.  but that is 20x.  and he is a fucking geezer compared to me.  I am nowhere near old enough to collect social security.  who knows how much I will have by the time I am that old, if God and providence allow me to live that long.

so, yeah, I have done way fucking better than Trump, despite being a dumbass.

and that should tell you something about Trump.  but I am sure you will try to make it about me.  again.  very tiresome.

I have pages and pages for you.

[djAdvocate]

yeah. it's a little weird, but I have come to accept it. sorta.

[mmhmm]

May 7, 2019 22:10:20 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

For those of you with your extreme intelligence,,, How comes you are not much richer than Trump,,,, for how dumb he is??

Hmmmm, maybe we hit on reality facts!

Yea I know,, his dad give to him,,, well he has not lost it.

As for you dad gave each of you a quarter ,,,annnnd you lost it!!

Being wealthy is not a measure of intelligence.

[oped]

So for the decade we do know about he lost 1.2 billion dollars... 

[happyhoix]

May 8, 2019 5:42:12 GMT -5 oped said:

So for the decade we do know about he lost 1.2 billion dollars... 

We also know he paid some guy to ghost write his 'art of the deal' book that he hawked all around the country at the very same time his company was in the red.

And so many smucks bought that book! Probably almost all of them had a higher net worth than the Donald did, at the time.

So many gullible people.  SO, so many gullible people.

[happyhoix]

May 7, 2019 19:27:09 GMT -5 steff said:

This month I have been shredding boxes of old bills, paperwork & check stubs.  I can tell you exactly how much my husband's wages have increased since 1998.  In that time period, I can also tell you which position he was working as he worked his way up in the company to management.  I also shredded 18 years of tax returns, so I saw exactly how much his base pay & take home pay changed. 

from 1998-2004 he moved up from working on the line (production factory) to supervisor and his pay went up an average of about $250 a week over that time. 

2004-2008 he starts working up the supervisor ladder.  The pay doesn't drastically change, but he does become salaried, so the checks no longer fluctuate.  Average pay increase in that time is $150 a week.  His bonus percentage goes from 1% to 3% (of 25% of his yearly pay~weird system that I'm still figuring out all these years later)

2008-2016 (the last year of physical pay check stubs) his pay went up a total $200 a week over EIGHT years.  This included moving up from shift supervisor to floor supervisor to floor superintendent.  He's 2nd in line in the production dept food chain, but there has never been a drastic pay increase. 

2016-now pay has been completely stagnant. 

The one very large benefit that moving up the food chain was his company paying for him to go to school.  It's was promised in 2010.  He finally went this year, he's there now.  NINE years & it took him looking into tranfering to a different plant to get them to guarantee he would be sent this year.  We are hopeful that this will be what finally gets him the large bump in pay, but we've learned not to hold our breath.  No it's not a 4 year school, it's 4 months of intensive classes & a certificate in his industry.  The school is the top school in the world for his industry.  He's been gone since January & will be home end of this month. 

so in 20 years, his pay has increased $600 a week.  And he's done it the old fashioned, work for the same company, work your way up the ladder, "real American" way and the pay doesn't really reflect that. 

I probably earned what my dad did, adjusted for inflation, and he supported four daughters, a SAHM, bought a nice middle class house and owned two cars.  To maintain a similar lifestyle, DH and I have both worked fulltime and we limited ourselves to just one child. Like my dad, we also have a nice middle class house and two cars.  My DS and his DW have a nice middle class house, two cars, so for three generations, we've been maintaining the status quo, although for the most recent two generations, it's required two salaries and no more than 1 kid.

[OldCoyote]

May 7, 2019 17:24:27 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

May 7, 2019 14:40:46 GMT -5 Value Buy said:

You are living in the past.
After about 1980 many women were in the workforce with part time jobs to make ends meet.
After 1990 women were starting to become a force in the full time workforce to make ends meet.

From the late sixties on, women went into the workforce to beat inflation increases. After 1980 it was to support an expanding expensive lifestyle.
The country will never go back to those days unless we all give up multiple yearly vacations, $1,000 cellphones and one or two tv's per household, Two hundred dollar sneakers, cable tv, and move back into 3 bedroom, 1,200 sq ft ranch homes, two or three vehicles, and start gardening again. 
Different lifestyle expectations, different era.
Nafta gutted the middle class, and both political parties were guilty of this.

 Nope.

After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today.

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

It isn't that we live a more extravagant lifestyle now.  Middle class wages (and purchasing power) has remained stagnant.

Of course, if you're wealthy, you're riding high on the hog. We've got the biggest wealth gap since the Roaring 20's.  The richest 400 Americans have tripled their wealth since the early 1980's, and now own more than the bottom 60% of Americans, who have seen their share of the pie shrink to 2.1% in the same time period.

Yes - 400 families own more than 60% of the country does.

www.axios.com/wealth-gap-richest-americans-roaring-twenties-938b8a27-bf7b-4392-b4ae-41b84bef2002.html

Now, who do you think Trump's big tax break for the wealthy  mostly benefited? Here's a hint - not his blue collar trumpettes.

I don't think that level of disparity is something to celebrate, do you?

Why do you worry about what some one else has??

Go make, build, something your self,, instead of worrying about what some else has.

[happyhoix]

May 8, 2019 8:46:18 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

May 7, 2019 17:24:27 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

 Nope.

After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today.

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

It isn't that we live a more extravagant lifestyle now.  Middle class wages (and purchasing power) has remained stagnant.

Of course, if you're wealthy, you're riding high on the hog. We've got the biggest wealth gap since the Roaring 20's.  The richest 400 Americans have tripled their wealth since the early 1980's, and now own more than the bottom 60% of Americans, who have seen their share of the pie shrink to 2.1% in the same time period.

Yes - 400 families own more than 60% of the country does.

www.axios.com/wealth-gap-richest-americans-roaring-twenties-938b8a27-bf7b-4392-b4ae-41b84bef2002.html

Now, who do you think Trump's big tax break for the wealthy  mostly benefited? Here's a hint - not his blue collar trumpettes.

I don't think that level of disparity is something to celebrate, do you?

Why do you worry about what some one else has??

Go make, build, something your self,, instead of worrying about what some else has.

Why aren't you worried about how well your fellow citizens are doing? Do you honestly think you can live peacefully on your pile of money while more and more people fall into poverty and hopelessness around you?

Do you know anything about the Russian revolution or the French revolution? Do you recall anything about the American revolution, when Americans got sick to death of paying high taxes back to England, so the English king could fatten his bank accounts at their expensive?

Historically, anytime there is a large gap between the wealthy and the poor, and the poor see no potential to get ahead in life for themselves or their kids, and see themselves as powerless,  things never end well for upper class. That should concern you quite a bit.   

[OldCoyote]

Happyhoix,, This is the Country of opportunity,,

If you want rich,, it is there!!  You have to work for it!

The rich are not keeping you down,, If you can't get up it is your fault..

There is opportunity every where you look.

Why are you bothered by what some one else does??   what some one else has??

Who cares what Trump has, who care how much money he lost , who care if he takes advantage of the tax laws,,

You could do the same thing!

There are several hundred million people around the World that wish they had the opportunity that you have..

Instead of worrying about all that Trump does or doesn't do,, if you are unhappy with your situation,,, fix it!!

But,, that is up to you I am not going to give you a bunch of free stuff.