Wage growth has sucked for a long time. So, answer this question: Is unemployment worse now than it was in 2009?
Funny you mention that 10%. The Trump fans are desperate for Bernie voters because they know their hate and doom campaign isn't enough to win on its own. Looks like they're out of luck on that one. 90 percent of unwavering Sanders supporters plan to vote for Clinton in November https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...nvention-is-chaotic-the-democratic-base-isnt/ Pew Research has been polling on the 2016 campaign for months, allowing it to track attitudes among voters over time. Nearly half of the Democratic electorate, 44 percent, changed their preference over the course of the three surveys Pew conducted. About 3 in 10 supported Clinton, wire-to-wire; about 20 percent Sanders. Pew asked those consistent Sanders supporters whom they support in the general election. Ninety percent said they back Hillary Clinton.
Wage growth? Did someone say wage growth? As wages rise, CEOs are starting to complain http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/25/news/economy/us-wages-ceos-talking-about-raises/ "Show me the money" is the rallying cry from American families. The jobs that were lost during (and after) the brutal recession have largely come back. But businesses haven't felt much pressure to pay workers more. Until now. The typical wage in America is now $828 a week, according to the Labor Department. During the depths of the Great Recession, weekly wages fell under $730. CEOs are feeling the political and economic pressure to raise wages. Starbucks, JPMorgan Chase, United Airlines and Walmart all announced pay hikes this year. Some executives have even started complaining. Chipotle (CMG)blamed higher wages -- especially new laws raising the minimum wages to $10, $12 or even $15 an hour in places -- for some of its recent slump in profits. "The labor inflation especially in the last year has been significant," said John Hartung, Chipotle's chief financial officer, on a recent earnings call. "We haven't passed on the cost of those higher wages [to customers]." Executives at Cintas (CTAS), a company that makes work uniforms, said rising wages and new overtime laws "can have a pausing effect on our customers" [translation: they will hurt sales]. Walmart warned higher wages and training would lower profits by $1.5 billion this year. "The upward wage trend is going to continue," says Randy Frederick, managing director of trading at Schwab. "It will put pressure on earnings." The focus now -- from Main Street to Wall Street to the campaign trial -- is on how much MORE wages will rise. Good-paying jobs and healthy wages have been hot topics on the 2016 campaign trail for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Workers are demanding more money at their jobs, and they finally have some leverage to ask for higher pay since it's getting harder to find people to fill jobs. Related: 'I like money': Meet the new women of Wall St. Big companies are raising the little's guys wages Wall Street is already alarmed at this trend. CEOs are increasingly getting asked: Will the raises hurt profits and stock prices? Mentions of "wage" or "wages" on earnings calls this quarter have doubled compared to a year ago, according to FactSet. In order to pay for wage increases, companies have to hike prices on their goods (Starbucks has raised coffee prices to help offset pay hikes), cut expenses elsewhere or else live with lower profits. For now, most companies appear to be managing by trimming elsewhere. But that won't be able to go on forever. "What we want to try and do is really get ahead of any federal or state mandate to be the employer of choice," Starbucks (SBUX) CEO Howard Schultz said on a recent call with Wall Street analysts who asked why the popular coffee chain is increasing pay by at least 5% an hour in October (that's about 50 cents, based on the average barista wage listed on Glassdoor.com). In other words, Schultz was basically admitting: We're paying more because it's harder to find good workers. But investors are hearing: Look out, costs are going up. With the U.S. stock market at record highs, investors are weary of anything that would cause stock prices to drop. Why it's happening now For years, big businesses didn't have to raise wages because there were nearly seven unemployed workers for every one job opening in the midst of the recession. Companies had their pick of people. If workers didn't like the pay or conditions, employers could just easily say: "goodbye," because it was easy to get someone else to fill that seat. Now, there's barely more than one job seeker for every job opening. Keeping good employees around is harder, and businesses from Silicon Valley tech hubs down to coffee shops are increasing pay to attract and retain workers. The jump in weekly wages from under $730 to nearly $830 today looks big, but you have to factor in that stuff costs more now than eight years ago, so pay needs to be higher to buy the same amount as then. If you adjust for inflation, that $730 wage from 2008 is equal to about $817 now. So, the average worker is finally making more, but only just. Related: Is America's middle class too pessimistic? In fact, the typical American earns about the same today as in 1996 (after adjusting for inflation). There's hope that may finally change now that wages are going up for more than just the highest skilled workers like doctors, lawyers and coders. Jobs are a big focus in the current election. Clinton has promised "the boldest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II." Trump has vowed to "bring the jobs back from China." There's only so much a president can do from the White House to create jobs and raise wages. But if unemployment stays below 5%, and more and more companies announce increases, there's real reason for American workers to think they will keep getting more money, even if it that translates into lower profits for Wall Street.
The thing is, I never said this economy is as good as it can be. The reason why labor participation rate is not great is due to 3 factors- only one of which is people aren't looking for work. The others are more people retiring and more people going to school. And wage growth is still not acceptable. But this goes beyond what the conservatives and Republicans say. They actually say- and I heard this on Hannity last week- that unemployment has gotten worse under Obama. Not "it isn't growing fast enough," not "UE is lower, but other factors..."- no, literally, "UE has not gotten any better under Obama." I don't know how to argue with people who content 10.1 to 4.9 is not better. We're not talking 10.1 to 8.0, or 7.0, or something like that. We're talking 10.1 to 4.9. And somehow, 4.9 is worse than 10.1. Am I missing something??? Oh, and you're absolutely right- there's only so much a President can do, and I'd be the first to say that the economy could have improved under Romney just like this. But you get tired of these biased jackholes brushing off anything Obama does good as (1) well, anybody could have done that, or (2) the economy grew in spite of him- and not applying the same criteria when someone with an "R" after their name is in the White House. They were arguing this back in 2012- "Reagan's policies caused UE to drop, but the UE dropped under Obama in spite of his policies." Sometimes, they have a point about Obama. Most of the time, they're full of horse****, deep down they know it, and their under-the-surface butthurt about a Democrat being in the WH for 8 years causes their brain to sap.
I'm not sure what you are implying that I don't get. I was asking him if I understood that post correctly. That if it was Obama's fault that the labor participation rate is down. Like you know I was kinda disagreeing with him.
A couple more things: 1. The DNC has a barrier to the stage because it actually has a crowd of people in the audience. So there is actually a crowd traffic issue. The RNC was pretty empty, especially after Melania spoke on night 1 and whoever it was that spoke on night 2. More important, no one in DNC's target audience even notices. And those who notice and are b****ing about it are never gonna vote for the Democrats anyway. It's the same thing with the "omg no flags!" people. 2. I heard on NPR (I think) that when asked to choose between only Clinton and Trump, we get 90+% Clinton among Bernie supporters. The issue is that when the surveyor also gave the option of the third parties (Johnson, Stein), we are getting about 70% or so Hillary, 20% third party and <10% Trump. The DNC's target audience among the former Bernie folks is the 20% would-be third party voters.
No you are not missing something. It's things like that, that make me lose interest in politics. I don't really see the point when people are able to have conversations with outright non factual assertions.
Oh, absolutely, completely agree with you. In our field, politics almost never comes into the discussion. It's about targeting jobs, determining geographic preferences, etc. But the general "economy is better" does come up- and usually b/c when the economy is better, we make more money. When the economy is worse, who the hell is going to pay for a resume when they have to take care of more important stuff? It's a weird thing, in a way, but it's true- the more people are finding jobs, the more my business prospers. And prosperity's been growing since about 2012. But there is a LONG way to go in some areas- like wages. A LOT of clients are complaining that companies are not paying what they should, and they're leaving jobs proactively rather than b/c they have to as in the past. I don't want to come across like some Robin Hood figure, but I've done salary history sheets for some of these CEOs- it is insane what they make. I mean, insane. Then again, look at the #1 purpose of this site. Our athletes and entertainers.... man. Hard to begrudge people for making what they are able to, but man oh man. Some people make insane amounts of money.
Well according to the article, wages now are 1996 level wages when adjusted for inflation. It's an outrage frankly. It's one of the reasons I was a Bernie supporter. Corporate greed and the Republican Party working overtime to marginalize collective bargaining. It's disgusting.
Do you ever feel weird about rooting for people that make $10M, $15M, $20M a year? Kinda strange, if you think about it. I mean, it's not what I think of when I'm watching Harden shoot a 3 or Watt sacking a QB... but it would be nice to make what some of them make.
BTW, I do understand what you're saying and get it. Sorry for being insulting- this damn election season! These points you bring up are definite areas of concern.
Well to me those guys have a special skill and a very limited time to make that money. They're merely getting their collectively bargained share of the pie in their industry. People throw a fit about some overpaid player but don't even blink about the owners that leverage their monopolies to gouge the public into billion dollar stadiums.
One Houston wage anecdote: I had position in Houston 2004-2005, then I left. In 2013, I interviewed for the same position, and the salary was 2% less than it was 9 years earlier.
Yes. That was a great speech, or at least delivered by a great speaker. As Brit Hume said (I watched on Fox to see what they thought of it...they all thought it was very good too), if he delivered that same speech, everyone would probably have fallen aslepp. But Bill is masterful at telling people stories, as if you were sitting around a campfire. He delivered it perfectly. There was concern beforehand that he might make it too much about himself and his Presidency, but he didn't. One sentence about it was all, and that tied into his message anyway. The rest was all about Hillary. One could discuss all the things he didn't talk about...but talking about them wasn't really his job, so he didn't.
yeah, yeah, yeah..., Bill's speech was blah, blah, blah. But I'm here to talk about the important issues. Where were the flags!?!?!?!?!?
