In a recent WSJ/NBC poll, 62% of Americans said the nation on the wrong track. That’s higher than at any point in 2012.
The Wall Street Journal takes the poll and concludes Voter Discord Isn’t Over Wages.
Wage and income gains in the U.S. have improved significantly since the last presidential election, yet voters remain deeply unhappy. The divide underscores the scars and anxieties that remain top of mind even as the severe 2007-09 recession fades into the background.
It isn’t just measures of American households’ net worth and the stock market reaching new highs this year. Nor is it just the latest monthly jobs report showing wage growth picking up last month.
Median wage growth has climbed from less than 2% in 2012, to 3.6% over the past year. That means half of workers received a raise above that level and half below. Thanks largely to falling gas prices in recent years, those pay increases are well above inflation.
Many households recognize they’re doing better, but think everyone else is doing badly. A big disconnect has emerged, for example, in the University of Michigan’s survey on household sentiment, when people are asked about themselves personally versus the overall economy.
In 2008 and 2009, when the recession was at its worst, more than 80% of Americans told Gallup that economic problems were the biggest issue facing the country.
Today, that’s down to about 27%. Rising concerns include race relations, dissatisfaction with government, crime and violence. Thirteen percent of voters cited national security, terrorism or Islamic State as a top concern; only 3% cited wages or lack of money.
Perhaps the best explanation of all this: For many voters there are very serious and grim issues in this election, but it isn’t really about pocketbooks anymore.
Really?
No! There are more visible problems thus more problems for people to choose. Race relations have gone downhill. There have been more shootings.
Social discord is about something, most likely jobs and wages, not racial incidents. Give voters enough choices and many will pick the hot topic of the day.
Proof comes from the popularity of Trump in the US and Brexit in the UK. If voters really believed the economy was improving, Trump would not have won the nomination with his message “Make America Great Again”.
The Journal says “Thanks largely to falling gas prices in recent years, pay increases are well above inflation.”
Really? What about rent? Obamacare? Education? Student debt? Is the CPI remotely accurate? What about benefits? And how many people have to work multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet?
Are voters so angry about so many things they do not even know what to blame?
This paragraph from the article rings true:
Despite the surge over the last year, “household income is still below where it was in January 2000,” after adjusting for inflation, said Gordon Green, a former Census Bureau official and partner at Sentier Research. Households may be unenthusiastic about a good year because they’ve seemed so few and far between. For many households, “it’s been very long, very painful.”
Outside of unpopular wars, social discontent is not this widespread except when people feel they are economically being left behind.
People may cite race relations, police attacks, security, etc., but those concerns have their roots in something else: a feeling of slipping economically behind over a decade or longer, as the rich get richer and richer.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The WSJ is merely acting in their accustomed role as propagandists for the billionaires and DC Elites….anyone in the real world knows otherwise…
Gotta love the Murdoch “hedge”
WSJ backs HRC
Fox backs DT
I’m canceling my subscription to WSJ immediately!
Yes.
WSJ LIES.
Government and corporations are continually blending their division lines. It’s because the same people are running both. WSJ is MSM is the propaganda machine for the US.
And that blending is classic Fascism.
“Wage and income gains in the U.S. have improved significantly since the last presidential election”
Prove it.
The LATEST (census bureau will come out with 2015 numbers in september) data:
Median household income was
$53,657 in 2014, not statistically
different from the 2013 median in
real terms, 6.5 percent lower than the
2007 (the year before the most recent
recession) median ($57,357), and
7.2 percent lower than the median
household income peak ($57,843)
that occurred in 1999 (Figure 1 and
Table A-1).
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-252.pdf
“Median wage growth has climbed from less than 2% in 2012, to 3.6% over the past year.”
Prove it.
Latest withheld income and employment tax collections (thru august 4th) are up fiscal year to date $62.940 billion over 2015
$1.889012 trillion
$1.951952 trillion
only +3.3% … and then you need to factor in (supposed) job gains of 2.5 million the past year… and leap year.
How much more of that 2016 growth is imputed more than 2015’s. We just can’t trust anything they say anymore.
The Treasury Department puts out a daily statement. Check first item in Table IV.
Fiscal Year to date
2015
https://www.fms.treas.gov/fmsweb/viewDTSFiles?dir=a&fname=15080600.pdf
2016
https://www.fms.treas.gov/fmsweb/viewDTSFiles?dir=w&fname=16080400.pdf
“We just can’t trust anything they say anymore.”
What did you trust before??
3.8% Obamacare investment tax?
Obamacare penalty?
Larger capital gains due to wealthy removing risk from their portfolios?
Real estate asset bubbles leading to outsize gains, plus 3.8% tax?
Tax collections don’t indicate growth; merely scooping more “wealth” out of the real economy.
I replied to Greg a while back … unfortunately, my response had 2 links. Will take hours for it to appear.
The tax revenue I cite is strictly what an employer (and self employed) deducts from an employee’s paycheck.
Everyone knows the problem but only Trump will say it. SECURE THE BORDERS. STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION. DEPORT ANYONE HERE ILLEGALLY. REVERSE GLOBALISATION. REFORM OUT OF CONTROL BANKS. Just to name a few.
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… and here’s Hillary’s response:
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/4062/2169/original.gif
Hillary: Eeeek-o-manics? I can’t do no stinking eeeek-o-manics.
It got work in it.
Read her lips, she’s saying “What does it matter?”
Mish, you keep at it, you’re always spot on and I appreciate your comments/insights.
The 1% included in the median makes this look better than it is. Most of the wage growth has gone to the upper 10%.
When folks of any race have reasonable income, good schools for their children and good health, race riots, shootings and involvement in foreign wars to name a few are merely cause for a tsk, tsk, but generally the over riding thought is, “I’m all right Jack.” Mind you, if the aforesaid conditions were met for everyone, there would be few race riots, shootings etc.
I remember reading once that the only difference between Americans and Russians is that Russians don’t believe anything their government tells them and the stupid Americans believe everything their government tells them!
If I believe half of what our government says, and half of what the Russians say, then what am I?
Gullible.
Because I believe any of it, or because I believe half of which side, Stuki?
For believing any utterance, by any government, anywhere, ever.
Isn’t it funny that you can get a TOTALLY different impression from the same sources on a different graph:
http://c3352932.r32.cf0.rackcdn.com/content/pic82bff948f56f1b161a853fee6a176a7f.gif
And we all know that the CPI is pure BS. See the large amount of info on-line about why that is so.
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Real household income is adjusted for inflation… The same CPI index that they use to control outflows of currency for SS payments.
What is driving voter perference? Something tells me it’s a bit different for every age group.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1zF3ZCirhA
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh……… Chocolate……………..”
That’s cute, but likely the same thing Jay Leno used to do, editing out all the people who chose the silver for comedic effect.
Still, a pretty good example of the Marshmallow Test for adults.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together could need a taxpayer bailout of as much as $125.8 billion in a new, severe economic downturn, their regulator said Monday.”
I lost track of how many times Republicans said they would do away / spin off the GSEs following 2009 … but that talk went nowhere (the $billions they paid back to Treasury might have had something to do with it …..).
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fannie-and-freddie-could-need-126-billion-taxpayer-bailout-in-next-crisis-stress-test-finds-2016-08-08
Republicans promised smaller government, lower taxes, border control, more prisons, law and order for fifty years. They never delivered. Vote Trump to clean house.
Yes! The political establishment is slowly seeing the resulting backlash from their ineptitude over the decades. The failure to “say what you are going to do and do what you said” is finally catching up. I am hoping that Trump will turn this around and change things for many years to come.
No politician nor government has ever delivered anything but misery and slavery. The fact that the Republicans promised and promises anything at all, just shows that they are nothing but a useless bunch of liars. Trump may be better than Hillary (It simply isn’t possible to be worse, so he’s a good bet in that regard), but I have no he’ll keep up the unbroken tradition of each and every President being worse than the one preceding him. That’s just part and parcel of life in a post civilized Dystopia in the midst of free fall from a tall building.
Being in the second Great Depression probably has something to do with it. Jeez.
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Society and the economic system have been heavily stratified, which has produced an instinctual feeling of unfairness. I’m not sure if we can quantify exactly what caused it, but inflation of goods, deflation of labor value, increased magnitude purchasing power, and a decreased sense that merit is rewarded are all factors in play.
Put another way, no ammount of econo-babble will convince a monkey that a cucumber is as good as a grape. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo
“Proof comes from the popularity of Trump in the US and Brexit in the UK. If voters really believed the economy was improving, Trump would not have won the nomination with his message “Make America Great Again”.”
Or it is proof the Republican Party has become terminally unfit. If Trump loses in a landslide then everything you have written in this article will have to be taken back. No?
If one looks at Trump as the anti-establishment candidate, then one also needs to consider Bernie Sanders did well as an anti-establishment candidate in the DNC primaries. If someone palatable can figure out how to get ALL the anti-establishment vote from both parties, that would start to rebuild the middle class.
If Trump is so anti-establishment and if the GOP establishment is so bad that it was a great thing Trump took over the party, why is his economic plan essentially cut and pasted from Paul Ryan’s House proposals?
Trump has argued against financial regulation, Sanders is for it. Trump pulls out warmed over supply-sidism, Sanders for making the tax code more progressive. You can talk about ‘anti-establishment’ all you want but in terms of actual positions, a Sanders supporter has more reason to feel comfortable voting for Hillary than Trump.
You cannot create an imaginary anti-establishment candidate who is both progressive and conservative at the same time…regulating Wall Street and deregulating it. Such a creature would have to be essentially a con man who attracts all his support by spinning out media circuses in order to distract both sides from actually trying to figure out what he stands for and what he would do. Right now that’s the game Trump has been trying for and there is probably no other figure in the US who could pull it off other than him and the game appears to be failing.
The Republicans will destroy their party before they allow Trump in the White House. Funny watching the career politicians squirm. Hillary is the next president is my prediction. I will vote locally for my representatives.
Sad watching both parties ignore their voters so they can have their way. Time for some new parties that listen to the voters.
The printing press continues to move Joe average backward, especially the fixed income elderly. The CPI is nonsensical. Printing is also moving cities backward, and cities respond by ramping collection efforts. Thus videos like the man in NY being tackled in an effort to collect a few pennies of cigarette tax.