Since the State of the Union show the other night I've seen a fair amount of action from the SML, Social Media Lemmings (or Liberals) , about P-BO's claims about the economy and how great it is.
Tip O'Neill once said "All politics is local", my corollary to that is "All economics is personal". In other words no matter how the indicators are spun or manipulated to make the economy appear good or bad, I think most people see the economy through the lens of their own personal situation. With that in mind, here's the view from my personal situation.
Almost 9 years ago I made the choice to use my skills developed over 25 years in the construction industry to be a part of something larger than my self. So I started working for a ministry which is involved in providing affordable housing to those who need it. I did this knowing that I was deciding to take a job in which I would not be compensated at the level I could be elsewhere. However, it soon became clear that I was going to need to earn more than I was getting, which led me to the two part time jobs I currently hold in addition to my full time job. It's one of those part time jobs that I want to focus on.
My first part time job was with a medium sized and growing building materials retail store. When I started the pay was decent, the hours worked with my schedule and it was a good fit. Over the years I've gotten all the possible raises, move from a position which required less knowledge and responsibility to one which requires a greater degree of both. Every time I get reviewed, they ask me if I will make this my full time job, and I say know because I like what I do. One thing I've learned over the 8 years I've been there is that this business is cyclical. Every year around the end of January things slow down, which makes sense. One consequence of this slow down is that there is a general reduction in hours for employees.
One clarification for any of y'all on the left who may not understand how these things work. Our company lives and dies by PTS (payroll to sales), in other words we need to sell X dollars worth of product in order to afford to pay for employees time.
That brings us to this winter. Sales dropped enough in December that management started cutting hours in order to stay positive on the PTS numbers for the year (this has not happened this early in the 8 years I've been there which includes the recent economic downturn). We all assumed that one we got into the new year things would loosen up, but instead they've gotten worse. My personal paycheck is down about 25% on average. (Thank goodness this isn't my primary income source) with no end in sight. There are two reasons for this.
1. We just aren't seeing customers walking in the door. It's not a lack of ability on us as sales staff, it's a lack of people to sell to.
2. Last year, in anticipation of a minimum wage hike, everyone one in the company received a significant raise. I believe that this was intended to make it less of a shock if minimum wage went up, or to get at or above an anticipated raise. (FYI, this company has always started even the lowest entry level positions at above minimum wage and has also paid a significant premium for mandatory weekend hours and offered quarterly raises for the first 2-3 years. Basically they've always paid pretty well for retail.)
Now, #1 almost certainly is due to the bigger picture economic situation. We've had a mild winter so people have been able to build more later in the year than previously. Although we also aren't getting the big $$$ snow blower sales we would if the winter was more normal. The truth is we are just seeing the result of a soft home building market and people not able to afford much in terms of renovations.
As for #2 as much as the raise was appreciated, we still have to maintain the PTS. So of the P goes up then we need more S to cover it. Conversely bad S can be offset by lowering P (# of hours). This is the kind of thing that too many on the left wish away in the minimum wage discussion. They just assume that there is an unlimited pool of money available to pay employees without anything else in the system having to change.
So, back to the Craig corollary, despite the rosy picture painted by P-BO and the SML's, the personal checking account view of the economy is that things aren't nearly as good as some people would have us believe.
As a final note, There are plenty of big picture economic indicators that suggest that the rosy impression that all the memes give you is not quite accurate. Certainly workforce participation rate is a big one, it's easy to show a 5% unemployment rate if you remove enough people from the workforce. Even the unemployment rate doesn't look so good if you happen to be in a lower income bracket, live in the urban core, or are a minority. Also, schools who's minority graduation rates of roughly 50% for minorities certainly don't help either. I already mentioned the house construction numbers being down (at least locally).
So, from the viewpoint of at least this one person, I'd say that P-BO and the SML's need to perhaps be a bit more realistic about the actual state of the economy.
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4 comments:
despite the rosy picture painted by P-BO and the SML's, the personal checking account view of the economy is that things aren't nearly as good as some people would have us believe.
Just for what it's worth, it seems to me that we can always pick out anecdotal stories about why today is not as good as yesterday or why 1984 was not as good as 1996 (or vice versa), but for big picture consistency, we have picked some common measurements to assess how things are going. Thus, we look to GDP, to unemployment, to the national debt and deficit, etc.
By doing this, we can reasonably (if imperfectly) compare Reagan's 1988 US to Clinton's 1998 US to Obama's 2010. What it sounds like, sometimes, to some of us, that some on the right are doing are complaining that, yes, sure, by the measurements we assessed Reagan, things are going pretty well, but we need to add in these other factors to more effectively pull down the rosy picture of Obama's years. It seems, that is, partisan and political when one side only does this only when their guy's are not in charge, rather than an effort to fairly assess the economy.
Perhaps you can see how it seems that way and why your side might want to tread lightly or be more evenhanded in their discussions of the economy if they want to be taken more seriously.
A couple of things.
1. The point of the post is that pretty much no matter what the indicators show (most people judge the state of the economy by how they are doing. I'm not suggesting that this is right or wrong, just that it is the way things are to some degree. I also realize the regional differences might impact these perceptions. Again, I'm talking about how people perceive things as much as anything.
2. The value of the indicators as tools of comparison is proportional to how how similar the data they are comparing is. For example you can pick two years with 5% unemployment, but unless you compare workforce participation rates the unemployment number is useless for comparison. So, while the unemployment number shows 5% it doesn't take into account the 90+ million people who have left the workforce because they couldn't find a job, it also doesn't measure things like the reduction in hours that I'm experiencing. Or the fact that the ACA drives employers to limit hours or that rising minimum wages affects the number of hours worked.
Ultimately my point is that much of what passes for learned discourse among the SML's is simply propaganda or misinformation that too many SML's simply re post without even giving the accuracy of it a second thought.
Again, I fully realize that my example is to some degree anecdotal, although I see enough confirmation from other sources to suspect that it's closer to right than wrong, that doesn't mean that the observations are invalid. It also doesn't validate the endless propaganda memes that to many SML's uncritically buy into and spread.
It almost seems as if you are suggesting that "your side" is not engaging in any sort of massaging of the data or selectively reporting things to make things appear better than they are, and that the fault is all on "my side". In reality, there is plenty of this on both sides, it's just that the SML's are uncritically spewing this stuff all over and too many people uncritically buy it.
I'm not sure how you can even begin to make this a one sided partisan issue.
Personally I find the manipulation of the unemployment numbers by the administration to be flat out dishonest and a naked political gambit. I'm sure you'll find a way to blame that on "my side". As for me and most of "my side", I'm suggesting that we look as accurately as possible at the real honest numbers and try to get the closets possible comparisons. I don't know why that shouldn't be taken seriously.
Personally, I suspect that a fair assessment of the economy would not support the current rosy view being propagated from the administration, but I also suspect that the SML's wouldn't be interested in a fair assessment anyway.
For example the current stock market free fall is not an indication of a healthy economy. The drop in the housing real estate sector doesn't seem to be particularly good news. The historically bad workforce participation rate also doesn't seem like a sign of health. I think that anyone who is the least bit honest would have to say that the "recovery" of the last few years has been disappointing (compared to similar historical situations) at best.
So, you and the rest of the SML's can keep uncritically buying into the party line if you want. I'd rather try to be a little less partisan and a little more realistic.
But, I'm still sticking with the Craig Corollary.
Craig, I don't know why "You guys are all wrong because the data backs us up, losers" is the right answer from the other side every time when the data appears to be unclear and uneven. You pointed to the overwhelming data point that says that workforce participation is at its lowest in something like 35 years. That one is ignored. I just read a (nonpartisan) warning from some of the Wall Street types that warned of an impending crash this year. "Get your money out now!" they're calling. And while anecdotal evidence may be spotty at best, after enough spots you begin to see a picture. Bottom line, as you point out, economics is personal, and personally I'm not impressed with what I see around me. Indeed, the economy of the last 5 years will be costing me money for the rest of my life, and that's no exaggeration. But that's okay, I suppose, because the GDP is up. I suppose I'll just wait until Bernie gets voted in and we can start ripping away some of those rich guys' money and give it to me. Yeah, that'll make things better.
Stan.
No argument from me. I think that we just have a bunch of mind numbed lemmings who uncritically accept whatever they hear from Saint P-BO as gospel and proceed to cover Facebook/Twitter with it without even pausing to even consider the fact that it might not be accurate.
Thanks for the thumbs up for the corollary, I'd suggest that anyone who argues that the economy is perceived through anything other than the lens of personal experience is simply brainwashed into believing that their politicians have all the answers.
I also agree that if you accumulate enough anecdotal evidence that it can become a pretty convincing case.
Since I posted this, my scheduled hours have been cut by about 40% and my actual hours are down even further. This is true across my entire department.
The problem those on the "$15/hr minimum wage" side have is that once you mandate an unsustainable minimum wage, then you have to mandate a minimum number of hours per week. Unfortunately for those who live in a land of theory, the business has to sell enough stuff to pay for artificially inflated wages or else they have to compensate in other ways.
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