NPR/Pew Research - Most Americans No Longer Are Middle Class

[Zstream]

And yet if you look at real COMPENSATION over that time period, you know, the amount that companies are actually paying in total costs to acquire and retain talent, that relationship basically disappears. FRED doesn't have data on foreign born going back that far but you can put my line on top of your graph easily enough in your head.

Does that make you reconsider? This is why friends don't let friends read the Daily Caller, by the way. It is not a reputable organization.

Not sure if you're understanding it properly, but it's pretty well documented that the cost to retain an employee has dropped due to the mass pool of workers available. Partly due to the rising divorce rate (single moms going into the workforce) and illegal immigration. If you have a smaller workforce, the cost to retain (salary or even hourly pay) an employee will change drastically.

 

[fskimospy]

No it does not, because my chart showed the lower 90% while you are looking at a view that includes the top 10%.

So when you include the top 10% or so, as you did, everything looks fine. Although I would point out that your chart has a change in the slope - an inflection point - as well, at about the same time (what happened in 1973 would be a good question).

Exclude the top 10% and you see why people are pissed, as my chart shows.

That is a simple concept that even you should be able to grasp.

You are right that mine included everyone and I should have mentioned that! Your chart is still really misleading though. Health care costs and other benefit costs have increased dramatically over this time, meaning that employers have still given their employees 'raises' in that they pay more for their health insurance but that isn't reflected in your chart. When you DO account for changes in overall compensation that correlation suddenly looks a lot worse, even if you're only counting the bottom 90%.

The Daily Caller is a hard right, partisan publication so they tend not to make the world's most honest articles. People would be a lot better informed if they stopped reading that sort of nonsense.

 

[fskimospy]

Not sure if you're understanding it properly, but it's pretty well documented that the cost to retain an employee has dropped due to the mass pool of workers available. Partly due to the rising divorce rate (single moms going into the workforce) and illegal immigration. If you have a smaller workforce, the cost to retain (salary or even hourly pay) an employee will change drastically.

Cost to retain in what way? Just total cost? Relative to productivity? Relative to inflation?

People who want to engage in protectivist, anti-immigration policies seem to think that we can just wall ourselves off from the world and that by doing so we'll all get rich. This is a deeply misguided and ultimately futile way of structuring our economy. While we sit in our bunker the rest of the world will compete with each other and continue to become more efficient and more capable while we stagnate. Juche doesn't work.

 

[shady28]

You are right that mine included everyone and I should have mentioned that! Your chart is still really misleading though. Health care costs and other benefit costs have increased dramatically over this time, meaning that employers have still given their employees 'raises' in that they pay more for their health insurance but that isn't reflected in your chart. When you DO account for changes in overall compensation that correlation suddenly looks a lot worse, even if you're only counting the bottom 90%.

The Daily Caller is a hard right, partisan publication so they tend not to make the world's most honest articles. People would be a lot better informed if they stopped reading that sort of nonsense.

Thanks for telling us what we should and shouldn't read.

The other side of your story is that people are paying more in total taxes and various 'required fees' than ever. Sales tax, property tax, fees for licenses, toll fees, land line and cell phone fees, auto registration fees (esp the trend for "use tax" - a tax to "use" the roads), all are at astronomical levels compared to 40 years ago.

Meanwhile, over time I have seen fewer and fewer people who have pensions.

I've seen those vaunted medical plans cover less and less, and require higher payments, and larger deductibles.



Private-sector pension coverage fell by half over two decades


And medical "benefits"?

 

[Jhhnn]

The idea that the wealthy, having pushed to kill manufacturing in the USA so they can take a larger percent of the process, would turn around and give it all back via some form a handout is ... naive in the extreme!


Brian

As if democracy has no power to levy taxes.

 

[Painman]

As if democracy has no power to levy taxes.

And how's the campaign to return "democracy" to "the people" doing right now?

It's been more or less Gamergated at this point. The "Bernie Apologist" meme is now out in full force.

What planet do you live on, dude?

 

[Mai72]

You have to wonder if we have too many people alive today.

Wars, diseases and other tragic events are just that...TRAGIC! But, when you think about it they do serve a purpose. And, the less people we have populating this world the better it is for everyone else.

 

[Zstream]

Cost to retain in what way? Just total cost? Relative to productivity? Relative to inflation?



People who want to engage in protectivist, anti-immigration policies seem to think that we can just wall ourselves off from the world and that by doing so we'll all get rich. This is a deeply misguided and ultimately futile way of structuring our economy. While we sit in our bunker the rest of the world will compete with each other and continue to become more efficient and more capable while we stagnate. Juche doesn't work.

Nothing to do with that at all. If you have a surplus of workers in certain fields, the salary will decrease. If you have a limited supply and compete for the individual, the greater the salary will be.

A surplus of bodies in the workforce (women, kids, immigrants) destroys the economy. I'm not saying women in the workforce is bad or immigration, I'm stating the basic fact.

 

[fskimospy]

Nothing to do with that at all. If you have a surplus of workers in certain fields, the salary will decrease. If you have a limited supply and compete for the individual, the greater the salary will be.

A surplus of bodies in the workforce (women, kids, immigrants) destroys the economy. I'm not saying women in the workforce is bad or immigration, I'm stating the basic fact.

Not really, because your 'fact' assumes constant demand, which is clearly wrong. While more people in the workforce might act to decrease salaries those people have needs of their own, which in turn increases the demand for labor and acts to increase salaries, which can balance it out. It doesn't mean that every sector of the population won't see a wage effect but the idea that immigration must reduce wages is not really supported by the evidence.

This is why research on the subject is super mixed. Usually the impacts tend to be felt in the jobs with the lowest qualifications but we have research indicating everything from the drop in wages you mentioned to a significant increase in wages due to immigration.

 

[fskimospy]

Thanks for telling us what we should and shouldn't read.

No problem! The Daily Caller is a pretty worthless publication. It's odd that you would criticize the NYT as a 'left wing rag' while having no problem with a site that has a stated, obvious extreme right wing bias. People like to read news that affirms what they want to think I guess.

The other side of your story is that people are paying more in total taxes and various 'required fees' than ever. Sales tax, property tax, fees for licenses, toll fees, land line and cell phone fees, auto registration fees (esp the trend for "use tax" - a tax to "use" the roads), all are at astronomical levels compared to 40 years ago.

Yes, taxes are higher than they used to be but so are government services. I don't see how this relates exactly.

Meanwhile, over time I have seen fewer and fewer people who have pensions.

I've seen those vaunted medical plans cover less and less, and require higher payments, and larger deductibles.

Private-sector pension coverage fell by half over two decades

And medical "benefits"?

Why are pensions a good thing in principle? A pension is not inherently superior to 401(k), it all depends on how generous the two are as compared to one another. As for medical benefits regardless of what you think of the quality of them it is indisputable that companies are generally paying much more for them than they did in the past, which was the point.

 

[blackangst1]

An almost perfectly linear drop over the last 44 years, I blame Obama and Bush.

Actually, its a pretty even decline since Ford. Blame all of them.

 

[Meghan54]

And medical "benefits"?

Yes, benefits....or are you trying to suggest the figures in the graph above represent what a family is paying for health care out of their own pockets? Because that graph does NOT represent that.

You do understand the figures in your graph represent the total paid in healthcare for a family of 4, including what the employer contributes to the insurance premiums, right?

Of the $24,671 (2015 figure from Milliman) in total healthcare costs for this typical family, $10,473 is paid by the family, $6,408 through payroll deductions, and $4,065 in out-of-pocket expenses incurred at point of care.

http://www.milliman.com/mmi/


Something interesting:

From 2004 to 2014, the average payments by enrollees towards deductibles rose 256% from $99 to $353, and the average payments towards coinsurance rose 107%, from $117 to $242.

During that period, average payments by health plans rose 58%.

http://www.healthsystemtracker.org/insight/payments-for-cost-sharing-increasing-rapidly-over-time/


So, while ins. companies are demanding higher deductibles (grew 256% in the last decade) and coinsurance payments grew 107%, payments health insurers paid only grew by 58%.

 

[shady28]

...
Yes, taxes are higher than they used to be but so are government services. I don't see how this relates exactly.

...

Why are pensions a good thing in principle? A pension is not inherently superior to 401(k), it all depends on how generous the two are as compared to one another. As for medical benefits regardless of what you think of the quality of them it is indisputable that companies are generally paying much more for them than they did in the past, which was the point.

No, you didn't have a point other than to be argumentative and defend your socialist agenda.

The point is - ever since we started doing mass importing of cheap labor, offshoring due to trade deals which eviscerated our manufacturing and blue-collar jobs, and now H1B facilitated offshoring of professional positions, multiple negative impacts have shown up for the average American (the bottom 90%).

I can summarize these :

1 - The average income of the bottom 90% in real dollar terms has completely stagnated.

2 - Total tax and fee burden as a percent of income for the lower 90% has gone up, meaning they have less of their stagnant income to spend.

3 - Employer provided benefits such as pensions have declined significantly, leaving people increasingly dependent on social security and personal savings for retirement.

4 - The percentage of income devoted to health care has skyrocketed; from 2003-2013 alone it went from 15% of income to 23% of income for a family.


With all of the offshoring and gov't services, how have we stayed afloat?

This is how - something that can't be sustained :

 

[Meghan54]

4 - The percentage of income devoted to health care has skyrocketed; from 2003-2013 alone it went from 15% of income to 23% of income for a family.

The only place I can find in that paper the 15% to 23% of income being devoted to health care is in premiums, and it includes what the employer is contributing to the cost of the premiums. The specific part is on page 4, the 4th sentence. It says:

In 2013, average annual family premiums were 23 percent of median family income, up from 15 percent in 2003 and 21 percent in 2010 (Exhibit 4).

So I'm supposing this is your basis of your statement, right?

Now, you may rightly say it doesn't explicitly say it includes the employer contributions, but the paragraph/section that immediately follows explicitly speaks to this: (page 4, second heading)

In 2013, U.S. employees contributed 21 percent of the total premium for employee-only coverage. This is unchanged from 2010, but an increase from 17 percent in 2003 (Exhibit 5) However, because premiums have grown, the actual amount that workers contribute toward premiums has climbed from $606 in 2003 to $1,021 in 2010 to $1,170 in 2013, or an increase of 93 percent over the decade.

In 2013 and 2010, average premium contributions for single coverage in employer plans were 4 percent of median income, compared with 2 percent in 2000.

So, employee premium payments for a family, on average, rose from $606 to $1170 over a decade. Put another way, the monthly cost was ~$50 in 2003 and rose to $97/mo. by 2013. Don't know about you, while that's not great, I imagine most persons getting insurance via employers had their pay increase by $50/mo. over the last decade.

 

[blackangst1]

---snipped---

Thats a pretty drastic increase in 2010...who the hell was POTUS then? GWB?