Happy Friday.
Last week we learned that socially liberal and fiscally conservative supporters of the republican party obtained neither for their vote.
The GOP imposes its
conservative dogma on our heretofore democratic society attacking those who refuse to compromise their identities or sacrifice their individual rights to conform to an anachronistic doctrine. It is not socially liberal.
The GOP's so-called conservative economic policies have generated a massive deficit totaling $929 billion, unprecedented debt, a
30% increase in spending, and tremendous wealth disparity. It is not fiscally conservative.
While these facts speak for themselves, there is another problem with the false construct of a socially liberal, fiscally conservative republican. It is a paradox. Economics impacts upon the social landscape, and vice-versa. The desire for a "conservative" laissez-faire economy clashes with socially "liberal" concerns like the ability to find a decent paying job, a good school, and affordable healthcare.
The GOP does not stand for a socially liberal, fiscally conservative America because it can't. A socially liberal and fiscally conservative vote is a myth.
As the below statistics from the
Economic Policy Institute reveal, the average American is far worse off today than five years ago. Because social and economic issues are intertwined, Americans suffer in both arenas.
If the number one reason people voted for Dubya is national security, it's time to ask: At what cost is it worth protecting our nation from a foreign threat when the real threat to our lives, our values, and our families is at home?
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1. Profits are up, but the wages and the incomes of average Americans are down.
- Inflation-adjusted hourly and weekly wages are still below where they were at the start of the recovery in November 2001. Yet, productivity—the growth of the economic pie—is up by 13.5%.[1]
- Wage growth has been shortchanged because 35% of the growth of total income in the corporate sector has been distributed as corporate profits, far more than the 22% in previous periods.[2]
- Consequently, median household income (inflation-adjusted) has fallen five years in a row and was 4% lower in 2004 than in 1999, falling from $46,129 to $44,389.[3]
2. More and more people are deeper and deeper in debt.
- The indebtedness of U.S. households, after adjusting for inflation, has risen 35.7% over the last four years.[4]
- The level of debt as a percent of after-tax income is the highest ever measured in our history. Mortgage and consumer debt is now 115% of after-tax income, twice the level of 30 years ago.[5]
- The debt-service ratio (the percent of after-tax income that goes to pay off debts) is at an all-time high of 13.6%.[6]
- The personal savings rate is negative for the first time since WWII.[7]
3. Job creation has not kept up with population growth, and the employment rate has fallen sharply.
- The United States has only 1.3% more jobs today (excluding the effects of Hurricane Katrina) than in March 2001 (the start of the recession). Private sector jobs are up only 0.8%. At this stage of previous business cycles, jobs had grown by an average of 8.8% and never less than 6.0%.[8]
- The unemployment rate is relatively low at 5%, but still higher than the 4% in 2000. Plus, the percent of the population that has a job has never recovered since the recession and is still 1.3% lower than in March 2001. If the employment rate had returned to pre-recession levels, 3 million more people would be employed.[9]
- More than 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since January 2000.[10]
4. Poverty is on the rise, and so is wealth concentration.
- The poverty rate rose from 11.3% in 2000 to 12.7% in 2004.[11]
- The number of people living in poverty has increased by 5.4 million since 2000.[12]
- More children are living in poverty: the child poverty rate increased from 16.2% in 2000 to 17.8% in 2004.[13]
- At the same time, the richest one percent's share of taxes (those earning $400,000 or more) is less than that of the 56 million Americans commonly refered to as the middle class (those earning between $45,000 and $400,000).[14]
5. Rising health care costs are eroding families' already declining income.
- Households are spending more on health care. Family health costs rose 43-45% for married couples with children, single mothers, and young singles from 2000 to 2003.[15]
- Employers are cutting back on health insurance. Last year, the percent of people with employer-provided health insurance fell for the fourth year in a row. Nearly 3.7 million fewer people had employer-provided insurance in 2004 than in 2000. Taking population growth into account, 11 million more people would have had employer-provided health insurance in 2004 if the coverage rate had remained at the 2000 level.[16]
SOURCES
[1] Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Survey.
BLS, Labor Productivity and Costs. Productivity is non-farm business output per hour.
[2] Bureau of Economic Analysis. NIPA Table 1.14.
[3] Census Bureau. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004.
[4] Flow of Funds Accounts in the United States. Total household liabilities, Federal Reserve Flow of Fund's Balance Sheet tables. Deflated using CPI-U from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
[5] Flow of Funds Accounts in the United States. For Disposable Income, Bureau of Economic Analysis Table 2.1. Mortgage and consumer debt from the Federal Reserve Flow of Fund's Balance Sheet tables.
[6] Federal Reserve: Household Debt Service and Financial Obligations Ratios.
[7] Flow of Funds Accounts in the United States. NIPA Table 2.1, adjusted using the price index for Personal Consumption Expenditures (Table 2.3.4).
[8] Analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. For methodology see Price, Lee (2005)
The Boom That Wasn't, EPI Briefing Paper #168.
[9] Analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. For methodology see Bernstein, Jared and Lee Price (2005)
An Off-Kilter Expansion, EPI Briefing Paper #164.
[10] Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Current Employment Statistics Survey. See also Bivens, Josh (2005)
"Trade deficits and manufacturing employment," Economic Snapshot, November 20, 2005.
[11] Census Bureau. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004.
[12] Census Bureau. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004.
[13] Census Bureau. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004.
[14] New York Times.
The Wealthiest Benefit More from the Recent Tax Cuts: June 2005.
[15] See Mishel, Lawrence et al. (2004)
Less Cash in Their Pockets, Briefing Paper #154.
[16] See Mishel, Lawrence et al. (2004)
Less Cash in Their Pockets, Briefing Paper #154.
