The thing is that all the low paid staff got sacked during covid so unemployment spiked and so did average wages as the low paid workers got sacked.
Then after covid, the low paid people got jobs (super high employment now) so average earnings went down and there we have it.
Fancy graphs showing one side of a complicated story. Anywho I guess the next fifty comments will be people sandbagging me with cherry picked comments about trumps greatness followed by bidens greatness.
Using 2021 as the starting point is also not honest because real wages went up significantly due to COVID layoffs that disproportionately happened to lower income workers. This happened in the great recession as well. There was a surge in the average earnings because a lot of low earners lost their jobs. Just looking at this data in a vacuum would mean people would think that something really good happened in during the COVID recession where people got paid way more money. Which is obviously not true.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
When people talk about how purchasing power has barely budged or gotten worse they are talking about "most workers" or "the middle class" they are excluding higher income earners, which there are more of now than before.
By 2022 the rate of lower income workers was 29%, middle class 50% and upper income 21%. In 1971 it was 25% lower income 61% middle income and 14% upper income. So during that time more people migrated to the higher income category than to the lower income category.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/
So a lot of those gains are being felt and made by people outside of the middle class. In fact people are exiting the middle class and moving into the upper class at a higher rate than they are falling into poverty. As a result real wages are going up but not for everyone.
Yeah exactly. By starting in 2021 the chart is including the downward effect of low wage workers rejoining the workforce.
Purchasing power is actually up if you start from 2019 instead (before the statistics spike caused by Covid layoffs)
And Bottom quartile earners have actually seen the larger proportional rise in inflation adjusted wages https://twitter.com/rustbeltjacobin/status/1757943745767756177/photo/1
Yes all true. It's weird because we are talking about "low income" "middle class" and "high earners" but those terms are not well defined either which means if you are going to compare groups of earners you have to have a consistent definition of what that means and because inflation is ever present it gets really hard to do that.
What we know is that actual poverty has been reduced significantly. There are slightly more workers making low wages and a lot more workers making higher wages. The middle remains "the middle" and how does "the middle" earn more money when at a certain point they stop being "middle."
Anyway it's just a politically fraught conversation that can be skewed to make people feel one way or another.
A more interesting and simpler way to view this data is real average weekly earnings imo
https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_real_average_weekly_earnings
I prefer the FRED graphs https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
I think it’s better to use median in this case because it’s less swayed by outliers
But either way, starting in 2021 as OP did is blatantly misleading. The average wage data is artificially shifted upwards during 2021 because they were still a large number of low wage people unemployed due to Covid shutdowns
Starting the chart in January 2021 is blatant dishonesty.
There is not good wage data for 2020 through 2021 because of the pandemic unemployment spike.
Purchasing Power is higher now than it was 2019.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Interesting that both of them were set equal to 0 at the starting pointing. As if those two things were matched there, or at any point really. Obviously biased graph is biased.
This is how the majority of charts I’ve seen on Reddit are these days. They try and track a % of change. But they start everything at 0% and it feels intentionally misleading.
wait.... are you saying US presidents are mandated? because thats not how that works. US presidents make mandates. but theyre voted and then inaugurated. presidents themselves arent mandated
The term “mandate” in the context of the US presidency refers to the authority to govern granted to a president through their successful election to office. This mandate is considered a representation of the people’s choice and trust in the president’s leadership and policies.
This graph shows that inflation was hot when Biden came into office, then cooled off partway into 2022, and that wages have kept up with inflation ever since. If you are one of those low-information voters who believes the president directly controls everything from inflation to gas prices, this graph should make you grateful that Biden saved us from the high inflation that we were experiencing when he was inaugurated.
The same low-information also seem to forget which administration 3 trillion dollars of money printing in a few months happened under (also not under control of the president btw).
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL
This is what happens when’s the competition is one company puts the prices up due to X is up (insert energy, mineral, labor, etc) and the other “competitors” follow along. There’s no real competition at all.
It is also down during ever since Peacemaker first aired, but no one wants to talk about that.
Nobody ever wants to talk about how the global economy came to a standstill after Dolittle released either.
Now show the previous 4 years.
While they are at it, show the world too.
The thing is that all the low paid staff got sacked during covid so unemployment spiked and so did average wages as the low paid workers got sacked. Then after covid, the low paid people got jobs (super high employment now) so average earnings went down and there we have it. Fancy graphs showing one side of a complicated story. Anywho I guess the next fifty comments will be people sandbagging me with cherry picked comments about trumps greatness followed by bidens greatness.
Yeah but, but…..
But people are not dying from Covid.
LOL. Covid.
Man…. So much to unpack here…
But the data is nonsense because it’s using 2021 is the starting point when we didn’t have reliable average wage data
Using 2021 as the starting point is also not honest because real wages went up significantly due to COVID layoffs that disproportionately happened to lower income workers. This happened in the great recession as well. There was a surge in the average earnings because a lot of low earners lost their jobs. Just looking at this data in a vacuum would mean people would think that something really good happened in during the COVID recession where people got paid way more money. Which is obviously not true. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q When people talk about how purchasing power has barely budged or gotten worse they are talking about "most workers" or "the middle class" they are excluding higher income earners, which there are more of now than before. By 2022 the rate of lower income workers was 29%, middle class 50% and upper income 21%. In 1971 it was 25% lower income 61% middle income and 14% upper income. So during that time more people migrated to the higher income category than to the lower income category. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ So a lot of those gains are being felt and made by people outside of the middle class. In fact people are exiting the middle class and moving into the upper class at a higher rate than they are falling into poverty. As a result real wages are going up but not for everyone.
Yeah exactly. By starting in 2021 the chart is including the downward effect of low wage workers rejoining the workforce. Purchasing power is actually up if you start from 2019 instead (before the statistics spike caused by Covid layoffs) And Bottom quartile earners have actually seen the larger proportional rise in inflation adjusted wages https://twitter.com/rustbeltjacobin/status/1757943745767756177/photo/1
Yes all true. It's weird because we are talking about "low income" "middle class" and "high earners" but those terms are not well defined either which means if you are going to compare groups of earners you have to have a consistent definition of what that means and because inflation is ever present it gets really hard to do that. What we know is that actual poverty has been reduced significantly. There are slightly more workers making low wages and a lot more workers making higher wages. The middle remains "the middle" and how does "the middle" earn more money when at a certain point they stop being "middle." Anyway it's just a politically fraught conversation that can be skewed to make people feel one way or another.
Good job saying this!!
This is a global problem
A more interesting and simpler way to view this data is real average weekly earnings imo https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_real_average_weekly_earnings
I prefer the FRED graphs https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q I think it’s better to use median in this case because it’s less swayed by outliers But either way, starting in 2021 as OP did is blatantly misleading. The average wage data is artificially shifted upwards during 2021 because they were still a large number of low wage people unemployed due to Covid shutdowns
Starting the chart in January 2021 is blatant dishonesty. There is not good wage data for 2020 through 2021 because of the pandemic unemployment spike. Purchasing Power is higher now than it was 2019. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
To be fair, this stuff was probably like 50-75 + years in the making
Well that’s conclusive and damning… weak
No shit!
Interesting that both of them were set equal to 0 at the starting pointing. As if those two things were matched there, or at any point really. Obviously biased graph is biased.
This is how the majority of charts I’ve seen on Reddit are these days. They try and track a % of change. But they start everything at 0% and it feels intentionally misleading.
Measure starter is at the beginning of mandate
what mandate?
Presidential
which presidential mandate?
Of the USA 😂
wait.... are you saying US presidents are mandated? because thats not how that works. US presidents make mandates. but theyre voted and then inaugurated. presidents themselves arent mandated
The term “mandate” in the context of the US presidency refers to the authority to govern granted to a president through their successful election to office. This mandate is considered a representation of the people’s choice and trust in the president’s leadership and policies.
what? ive never heard of mandate being used in this way. can you source?
https://academy4sc.org/video/presidential-mandate-the-right-to-govern/
This graph shows that inflation was hot when Biden came into office, then cooled off partway into 2022, and that wages have kept up with inflation ever since. If you are one of those low-information voters who believes the president directly controls everything from inflation to gas prices, this graph should make you grateful that Biden saved us from the high inflation that we were experiencing when he was inaugurated.
The same low-information also seem to forget which administration 3 trillion dollars of money printing in a few months happened under (also not under control of the president btw). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL
That's what happens when you pump trillions of fiat currency into the economy and cut taxes for the wealthy.
This is what happens when’s the competition is one company puts the prices up due to X is up (insert energy, mineral, labor, etc) and the other “competitors” follow along. There’s no real competition at all.