Today we got the new jobs number for September. The September Jobs Report showed that non-farm payrolls were up by 194,000 jobs. The estimates were for 500,000. Immediately, the business news media started to downplay this information. This number will not hurt the stock market but this huge underperformance is a big deal. It is stunning, actually.
This post was not anti-wealth, many billionaires are OK with me. But, it was about the shrinking middle class so I want to add an astonishing statistic that I just learned today. The wealthiest 1% of American citizens hold 27% of the nation's privately held wealth. The middle 60% of American citizens hold 27% of the nation's wealth. 1% = 60%. The middle class' share of real estate, equities and private businesses fell quickly over the past generation. Don't complain about the top 1% getting too much. Complain about the middle 60% getting far too little. This has much more to do with our political strategies and our tax system sucking the wind out of the middle class. The super rich created millions of middle class jobs but those jobs were underpaid and over-taxed for reasons that the business creators do not control.
One of our co-readers provided me with a comment via email because they can't link their name to anything controversial online and hey, today everything is controversial. Here is the comment: "I would just add a caveat to your final sentence, Mark, “[a]nd how members of our Congress get their jobs.” --- This is a GREAT point. We are still a nation of voters and we get what we ask for when we vote these people in. Maybe we are starting to take some power back - all of these Trumpublican state laws to restrict voting best-practices are because voter turn-out is going UP and new voters (conservatives or liberals or whatever) are rejecting bullshit politics.
You're absolutely right. A funny thing about the 194,000 versus 500,000 is that there may really have been 500,00 jobs offered but, only 194,000 jobs accepted. I don't know what the full title of the monthly "jobs" report is but, I suspect that what we hear reported every month is actually a statistic that probably has a title like "new employment". I'll bet never before has there been such a disparity between jobs offered and jobs accepted and the messed up nomenclature has never been questioned..... it was all just shorthand for the actual titles.
The "jobs" report has been one of the barometers of the health of the economy for a long time. Right now, not so much. Too bad for Joe the 194K when 500K was expected is going to be used against him. The 500K is a more accurate measure of where the recovery is.
I have been trying to wrap my head around this issue for awhile now..without success. Thank your “Glorious GAD” for me. I think that I have a much better grasp of The Problem!
This post was not anti-wealth, many billionaires are OK with me. But, it was about the shrinking middle class so I want to add an astonishing statistic that I just learned today. The wealthiest 1% of American citizens hold 27% of the nation's privately held wealth. The middle 60% of American citizens hold 27% of the nation's wealth. 1% = 60%. The middle class' share of real estate, equities and private businesses fell quickly over the past generation. Don't complain about the top 1% getting too much. Complain about the middle 60% getting far too little. This has much more to do with our political strategies and our tax system sucking the wind out of the middle class. The super rich created millions of middle class jobs but those jobs were underpaid and over-taxed for reasons that the business creators do not control.
One of our co-readers provided me with a comment via email because they can't link their name to anything controversial online and hey, today everything is controversial. Here is the comment: "I would just add a caveat to your final sentence, Mark, “[a]nd how members of our Congress get their jobs.” --- This is a GREAT point. We are still a nation of voters and we get what we ask for when we vote these people in. Maybe we are starting to take some power back - all of these Trumpublican state laws to restrict voting best-practices are because voter turn-out is going UP and new voters (conservatives or liberals or whatever) are rejecting bullshit politics.
You're absolutely right. A funny thing about the 194,000 versus 500,000 is that there may really have been 500,00 jobs offered but, only 194,000 jobs accepted. I don't know what the full title of the monthly "jobs" report is but, I suspect that what we hear reported every month is actually a statistic that probably has a title like "new employment". I'll bet never before has there been such a disparity between jobs offered and jobs accepted and the messed up nomenclature has never been questioned..... it was all just shorthand for the actual titles.
The "jobs" report has been one of the barometers of the health of the economy for a long time. Right now, not so much. Too bad for Joe the 194K when 500K was expected is going to be used against him. The 500K is a more accurate measure of where the recovery is.
I have been trying to wrap my head around this issue for awhile now..without success. Thank your “Glorious GAD” for me. I think that I have a much better grasp of The Problem!