This is really the part I don't get. Unless you are actually in the business of manufacturing cardboard shanty towns, who the hell do these big companies think is buying their shit?10% unemployment means 90% employment. There are still people who can afford internet access or whatever.
Houses are bigger, and they are filled with more things. The price of consumer goods has gone way down, but we have actually outpaced that fall with our discretionary spending (and debt, dear god, the inflation-adjusted levels of household debt).Actually a lot of the increases in spending come in the form of healthcare costs. The costs of consumer goods have come down. How much consumer crap do people even need anyway?
The Commerce Department adds these insurance and pension contributions and employer contributions for government social insurance programs to wage and salary incomes to make up the category labeled total compensation. Even by this broad measure of labor compensation, the share of national income gains going to workers in the first 10 quarters of this recovery is lower than in all previous recoveries since World War II.Must admit to be not particularly familiar with the arguments though - not a measure used in the UK AFAIK due to our different welfare set-up.
As opposed to increases in wages and salaries, the degree to which the increases in payments for insurance and pensions will enhance living standards is unclear. Rising employer payments for health insurance premiums partly reflects the acceleration in health care cost growth, which may not appreciably benefit covered workers. In addition, many employers with pension plans that promise a defined benefit to workers have had to increase their pension contributions to make up for the drop in the stock market, which reduced the value of pension plans portfolios. The increased contributions were necessary to assure payment of the promised pension benefits. In this respect, the current increase in pension contributions make workers no better off than they were before, since many workers would still expect to receive the same pension benefit that was promised previously.
Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 -- and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first compiled in the 1960s.posted by Abiezer at 5:28 AM on January 13, 2010
And the net worth of American households -- the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus debts -- has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially collected in the 1950s.
Food -19%
Car -30%
Clothing -32%
Appliances -44%
Health Ins. +103%
Housing +100%
Childcare +100%
Taxes + 25%
Although the level of spending per capita in the United States contrasts sharply with that of other wealthy countries, the growth rate of spending in the United States is less unusual. Most industrialized countries—even those with a financing system quite different from that in the United States—have experienced a substantial long-term rise in real spending on health care.posted by FuManchu at 4:15 PM on January 13, 2010
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posted by demiurge at 8:47 PM on January 12, 2010 [10 favorites]