[NJFAC] Galbraith: Bidenomics and Its Discontents

Bidenomics and Its Discontents https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/bidenomics-criticism-economy-election/ James K. Galbraith 3/27/24

The White House believes American workers have seldom had it so good. And lots of prestigious economists agree. But the voters aren't buying. Maybe they know something?

....

Take the unemployment rate. It is a ratio of those seeking work to the whole active labor force. In past times, most households depended on a single earner, for whom holding a job was a make-or-break proposition. If unemployment was rising or high—say 7 percent, typical in recessions—then, even though 93 percent of the labor force was still working, fear of unemployment amplified the woes of those actually out of work. Conversely, if unemployment was low or falling, most workers felt reasonably secure. The unemployment rate, back then, was a reasonable indicator of distress or well-being.

Those days are long gone. Today's typical American working household has several earners, sometimes in multiple jobs. If one earner loses a job while the others keep theirs, she may leave the workforce for a time; there is the option of making do with less, and for some there is early retirement. She will not, in that case, count as unemployed—however difficult her life. A low jobless rate can mask a great deal of stress in such households. The employment-to-population ratio is still a bit below where it was in 2020, and far below where it was in 2000; average weekly hours are still falling.....

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
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[NJFAC] BlackRock CEO recommends that we retire later

A solution to the retirement crisis? Americans should work for more years, BlackRock CEO says

By Aimee Picchi March 27, 2024 /

With Americans living longer and spending more years in retirement, the nation's changing demographics are "putting the U.S. retirement system under immense strain," according to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink in his annual shareholder letter. 

One way to fix it, he suggests, is for Americans to work longer before they head into retirement.

"No one should have to work longer than they want to. But I do think it's a bit crazy that our anchor idea for the right retirement age — 65 years old — originates from the time of the Ottoman Empire," Fink wrote in his 2024 letter, which largely focuses on the retirement crisis facing the U.S. and other nations as their populations age. [Apparently he doesn't know that the Social Security age for full retirement has already been increased.jz]

Fink, who is worth an estimated $1.2 billion, notes that many 65-year-olds in the early 1950s didn't get a chance to retire because many had already passed away. In other words, he writes, more than half of workers who had paid into Social Security never got a penny because they died before they could claim the benefit.

"Today, these demographics have completely unraveled, and this unraveling is obviously a wonderful thing," Fink added. "We should want more people to live more years. But we can't overlook the massive impact on the country's retirement system."

[He'll be glad to know that life expectancy has been falling. Does he know that highly unequal incomes, like his, deprive SS of revenues? The payroll tax stops at incomes above $168,600 [2024].  jz] ....

Fink heads Black Rock, "the world's largest asset manager, with $10 trillion in assets under management."

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
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[NJFAC] U.S. Billionaire Wealth: Up 88% in 4 years

Total U.S. Billionaire Wealth: Up 88 Percent over Four Years Four years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States has 737 billionaires with a combined wealth of more than $5.5 trillion. March 18, 2024 by Chuck Collins Omar Ocampo

Four years ago, the United States entered the Covid-19 pandemic. Forbes published its 34th annual billionaire survey shortly after with data keyed to March 18, 2020. On that day, the United States had 614 billionaires who owned a combined wealth of $2.947 trillion.

Four years later, on March 18, 2024, the country has 737 billionaires with a combined wealth of $5.529 trillion, an 87.6 percent increase of $2.58 trillion, according to Institute for Policy Studies calculations of Forbes Real Time Billionaire Data. (Thank you, Forbes!)

The last four years have been great for particular billionaires:

On March 18, 2020, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had wealth valued just under $25 billion. By May 2022, his wealth had surged to $255 billion.  As of March 18, 2024, Musk is at $188.5 billion, more than a seven-fold increase in four years.

Over four years, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has seen his wealth increase from $113 billion to 192.8 billion, even after paying out tens of billions in a divorce settlement and donating tens of billions to charity.

Three Walton family members — Jim, Alice, and Rob — are the principal heirs to the Walmart fortune.  They saw their combined assets rise from $161.1 billion to $229.6 billion.

In 2020, only one billionaire — Jeff Bezos — had $100 billion or more. Today, the entire top ten are centi-billionaires, bringing their collective wealth to a staggering $1.4 trillion.

The only billionaire on the 2020 top 15 wealthiest Americans list to see their wealth decline in four years was MacKenzie Scott. Four years ago, on March 18, 2020, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos had a net worth of $36 billion. It has declined to $35.4 billion due to her aggressive giving to charity.....

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
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[NJFAC] the CARES act and its loss: the appeal of Trump

Is This What Happens When You Build a Real Social Safety Net, Then Take It Away?

By Bryce Covert NY Times March 12, 2024

It's a riddle that economists have struggled to decipher. The U.S. economy seems robust on paper, yet Americans are dissatisfied with it. But hardly anyone seems to have paid much attention to the whirlwind experience we just lived through: We built a real social safety net in the United States and then abruptly ripped it apart.

Take unemployment insurance. The CARES Act, passed in March 2020, included the largest increase in benefits and eligibility in American history. It offered people "a sense of relief," said Francisco Díez, senior policy strategist for economic justice with the Center for Popular Democracy, which organized unemployed people in the pandemic. "A feeling like they could breathe and figure out what they could do."

Lessons learned from the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program during...

....

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June Zaccone
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[NJFAC] perhaps why many are gloomy about their economic prospects

Nearly 50% of US parents financially supporting adult children, study finds

Soaring costs of food and housing forcing many to still rely on parents to cover expenses, as they risk retirement security Erum Salam 12 Mar 2024

Nearly half of US parents provide some kind of financial support to their adult children, who are grappling with higher food and living costs than they did, a new study has found.

The study – conducted by Savings.com – found that young, working-class Americans were not substantially benefiting from the recovery of the country's economy, as "evidenced by high employment, falling inflation, and economic growth". That has forced many of them to continue to rely on their parents to help cover costs of living.

The average age of adults receiving financial help from their parents – sometimes at the risk of the parents' retirement security – was 22, according to the study. And while parents surveyed in the study on average said their adult children should become financially independent by 25, many were supporting those children beyond that milestone.

Of parents providing support, 21% were helping millennials (age 28-43) or members of gen X (age 44-59). Millennials and gen X adult children were on average given between $907 and $960 each month by their parents.

Gen Z adults (between 18 and 27) were getting more help from their mothers and fathers, averaging about $1,515 monthly.....

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June Zaccone
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[NJFAC] The Most Technologically Progressive Decade of the Century [for the US] : 1929-1941

The Most Technologically Progressive Decade of the Century
By ALEXANDER J. FIELD*

Because of the Depression's place in both the

popular and academic imagination, and the re-
peated and justifiable emphasis on output that
was not produced, income that was not earned,
and expenditure that did not take place, it will
seem startling to propose the following hypoth-
esis: the years 1929 –1941 were, in the aggre-
gate, the most technologically progressive of
any comparable period in U.S. economic history.1
The hypothesis entails two primary claims: that
during this period businesses and government
contractors implemented or adopted on a more
widespread basis a wide range of new technol-
ogies and practices, resulting in the highest rate
of measured peacetime peak-to-peak multifac-
tor productivity growth in the century, and sec-
ondly, that the Depression years produced
advances that replenished and expanded the lar-
der of unexploited or only partially exploited
techniques, thus providing the basis for much of
the labor and multifactor productivity improve-
ment of the 1950's and 1960's.
The hypothesis does not imply that all of the
effects of the advances registered in the decade
were immediately felt in the productivity data,
nor, on the other hand, does it dismiss the sig-
nificance of larder-stocking during the 1920's
and earlier, upon which measured advance
built. Rather, it draws our attention to the prob-
ability that progress in invention and innovation
in the 1930's was significant, in ways not well
appreciated, both in facilitating the remarkable
U.S. economic performance before and during
World War II, and in establishing foundations
for the prosperity of the 1950's and 1960's.

....

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[NJFAC] Tell Congress: No “fiscal commission” that threatens Social Security and Medicare

Stop Fast Track Cuts to Social Security

Dear Friends,

The National Jobs for All Network is dedicated to the enactment of Franklin Roosevelt's Economic or Second Bill of Rights in which the guarantee of living-wage work is the "first and most fundamental" economic right and "security in old age" is one of the essential components.

 

As Roosevelt stated in his 1945 State of the Union address:

Of these rights the most fundamental, and one on which the fulfillment of the others in large degree depends, is the "right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation." In turn, others of the economic rights of American citizenship, such as the right to a decent home, to a good education, to good medical care, to social security, to reasonable farm income, will, if fulfilled, make major contribution contributions to achieving adequate levels of employment.

Please consider signing the following Action Alert.

Best regards,

Trudy Goldberg, Chair

National Jobs for All Network

We cannot balance the federal budget on the backs of older Americans, people with disabilities, and low-income communities.

The House Budget Committee passed a harmful, so-called "fiscal commission" and now Speaker Johnson is looking to add it to must-pass legislation in the coming weeks. This commission is nothing but a way to fast track cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and other key programs behind closed doors so the American people won't know who to blame. If Congress truly wanted to balance the federal budget, they would go after the wealthy and corporate tax cheats who cost our country $1 trillion dollars per year in lost revenue, and not the millions of people who rely on Social Security and Medicare as a lifeline. TELL CONGRESS: No "fiscal commission" Some in Congress are pushing back―and we can add our voices to stop this bad proposal. In January, Reps. John Larson (D-CT) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), along with 116 of their colleagues, sent a letter to House leadership to reject attaching a "fiscal commission" to any must-pass funding bills. We need to remind policymakers that putting our country on the right fiscal path should not come at the cost of meeting urgent public needs or cutting critical programs and services. We cannot balance the federal budget on the backs of older Americans, people with disabilities, and low-income communities. It's time for Congress to listen to 81% of the American public and reject any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and other vital programs. ADD YOUR NAME to tell Congress to reject the "fiscal commission." Thanks for all you do, The whole Common Dreams team Share this email with a friend Call 207.775.0488 to donate by phone or mail a check to: Common Dreams · PO Box 443 · Portland, ME 04112-0443 · USA Common Dreams is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your contribution is tax-deductible. EIN: 20-3368194 Add us to your address book

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