

The long-term trend is that the average person’s income is rising but we’ve seen recent declines due to high inflation. Can you expand on your line of thinking? I’m not sure I follow your reasoning.


The long-term trend is that the average person’s income is rising but we’ve seen recent declines due to high inflation. Can you expand on your line of thinking? I’m not sure I follow your reasoning.


Most households living below the poverty line have at least one unemployed person, so giving people jobs is pulling them out of poverty. Whether or not they are treated fairly at work and are satisfied with their working conditions is another story.


My parents never could’ve either but $500k household net worth only puts you in the top 20% of households so it’s not like they were exceptionally wealthy and we don’t know if they borrowed to invest or what exactly their specific situation was. Miguel Bezos was a Cuban refugee and then worked as an engineer for Exxon and Jackie Bezos was a secretary so i mean this is pretty middle class IMO.
That doesn’t mean that all billionaires clawed their way to the top as i mentioned above, or that we shouldn’t make progressive changes to the tax code. It’s just important that we separate truth from fiction to make educated decisions.


Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz grew up in a Brooklyn Housing project, George Soros survived the holocaust and worked waiting tables, David Murdock of Dole Foods was homeless. There’s tons of examples.
Here’s a fun article that ranks the whole Fortune 400 list. 80% of them inherited their wealth or at least grew up middle class.
Jeff Bezos actually scores high on the list because his Mom had him when he was 17, he flipped burgers in high school and by and large did not grow up rich.


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Goddamn those time-travelling Venezuelans.


Hillary Clinton dismissed President Trump as an “illegitimate president” and suggested that “he knows” that he stole the 2016 presidential election in a CBS News interview to be aired Sunday.


Housing costs are included in CPI. What I’m saying is i agree with the current methodology. Do you know what the current methodology is? It does make sense.


I don’t agree with putting home prices in cpi, because a small number of home sales would dramatically swing inflation, so yeah while it’s a really critical number for people looking to buy a home it is not a good litmus test for the average purchasing power when there are better imputed metrics like “owner cost or equivalent rent”.


So if they’re hidden how do you know they are at record levels?


Buying power is not going down. Do you at least have a source for that?
I think you might be talking about the productivity-pay gap but it has nothing to do with purchasing power.
Inflation adjusted wages are going up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q


No one measures the economy based on stock prices.
Inflation is going down, real wages are going up, unemployment is down.


Your grocery costs have not doubled.


I don’t understand why people have trouble finding current data: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q


Corporate profits are relatively flat as a percentage of national income (it has gone up a bit since COVID): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A445RE1A156NBEA
People always seem to remember to adjust wages for inflation but understandably because of media headlines almost never adjust profits for inflation.


There’s a FRED series called real disposable income: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0
Which is after-tax personal income adjusted for inflation.


Pretty sure it’s measured by gdp
Curious why you made the distinction about real personal income when it is also rising. I agree wealth inequality is rising but not that it is coming at the expense of real personal incomes.