Comments on: First look at US pay data, it’s awful

By: afrommi

afrommi — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:18:39 +0000

The idea that the now POTUS is lone cause of our economy is at best, preposterous. It is a fact that Obama has not been able to pass any of his programs with thin “NO” congress. This congress whose platform was “jobs” has not made any attempt at the objective. They however, have been able to discuss abortion, “in God we trust”, and have wasted their time in getting rid of those who stood up against them, like Mr. Weiner. But jobs, they have not created one. Which makes it obvious that they lied to their own base and the public during their campaign when they admitted their main objective was for Obama to fail. It makes sense, since they think people are stupid and they do not notice that they have been getting paid for not working.
Americans by now, I hope they have awaken from the slumber or GOP brainwashing, and realize that we are still operating with Bush’s policies, of subsidies (or gifts) to corporations, tax cuts and veiled actions by the leadership in congress. And the children are still having pizza and soda for lunch at school.

By: forteinjeff

forteinjeff — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:40:21 +0000

This guy is brilliant! I will be a follower of him forever more. Of course the guys to smart to run for office but he’d sure get my vote. Imagine, using your brain for once. This guy has got more than he can use and he shares it with us. The world is a better place after all.

By: BenL8t

BenL8t — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:47:03 +0000

12 years ago, in October 1999 there were more private sector workers than today. See the BLS numbers at http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServ let — both then and today about 109.8 million private sector workers. What does it say about our private economy that after 12 years we still employ the same number, in spite a growth in civilian non-institutional population growth of 33 million, from 207 M to 240 M (again see BLS figures at http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat1.pdf) That’s an 16% growth with no growth in total private sector jobs! What did those 33 million working age adults do with themselves????— Also the $6 trillion in wages — take another look at that. That’s less than half the personal income from BEA figures on GDP. This is the second time in history that the wages figure has dropped below 50%. If you look at the Tax Policy Center’s data on income distribution you see that wages and salaries amount to only 64.5% of all personal income, and that the top 20% receive over 50% of that total. (See Sources of Cash Income by Cash Income Percentile, All Tax Units, 2006) It is complicated, but D.C. Johnson’s analysis is depressingly accurate.

By: MidwestVoice

MidwestVoice — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:02:52 +0000

Too many people in this country think this is a Republican / Democrat problem and it most definitely is not. Maybe 50 years ago there was a big difference in the two parties; maybe not as much as people think. The problem ultimately comes down to a couple of points: Congress makes the laws (and decides to whom they apply) and Congress has been bought and paid for by various moneyed interests in this country. Ergo, Congress works for them and not for the people they supposedly represent.

Any time you have a system where the person running for office must spend millions upon millions for a job that pays a fraction of that, they will owe allegiance to the source of the money. No one in their right mind is going to bite the hand that feeds (or pays to elect) them.

The ONLY way I see a viable Republic moving forward is to make a few changes:
1. publicly funded elections with a set starting date for campaigns and ONLY the set amount of public money may be used toward a campaign. A set of campaign ‘rules’ and if you violate the rules, you are forever ineligible for any elected or appointed government position.
2. Service Limits – say a max of 16 years at the Congressional level; these could be in the House or Senate, as long as the combined total does not exceed the set maximum. One could then run for Pres or VP, but never again for Congress.
3. Eliminate Lobbying; remove the revolving door from Congress to private jobs pushing an agenda to your former colleagues and while in office, no close family member working for any company where a conflict of interest could exist. Any infractions – along with ANY felony conviction – automatically removes you from office effective immediately and all current and future benefits (salary/ pension/ healthcare/etc) are forfeit.
4. Require any law passed by Congress to apply to all equally. No exceptions or exemptions. Require all bills to be limited to one item or topic; no sliding pork or junk into an otherwise worthy bill. All bills must be no more than 5 pages or 5,000 words; this will ensure that bills will be read and hopefully understood before voting takes place. It will make it easier to monitor how your Representative actually voted; one issue one vote. If a Representative missed more than a certain number of votes, they should have their pay docked and be automatically eligible for a recall. Just like school age children are punished for truancy, paid officials not doing their job should be punished. In any other business, workers not showing up and doing their job are dismissed; Congress should be no different particularly when you look at the Congressional calendar. They have more time off than anyone I know! Their calendar was set long before a trip home could be accomplished within a few hours; maybe it should be updated to reflect the reality of travel times today.

I believe that there are people out there who have the best interests of all our citizens at heart. I do not believe those people are actually in Congress. Maybe some of these provisions would help replace those in Congress with those who should be.

By: DavidCayJ

DavidCayJ — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:42:53 +0000

@DavidS13, my column is about wages, while the article you refer to is about total income. Also, my article is about each worker, while household data is higher because often there is more than one worker.

Also, there are various ways to measure income, some of which count the rental value of owner occupied homes as income and the value of health insurance premiums. My column is cash compensation for services — wages, salaries, bonuses.

Wages account for 69% to 81% of income of taxpayers in the $1 to $250,000 income groups the government tracks and declining amounts above that, with the 8,274 taxpayers making more than $10m (average was $29m) counting on salaries for just 19 percent of their reported income.

By: Carney3

Carney3 — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:55:46 +0000

The House passed a jobs bill months ago. The Senate refused to consider it.

By: stopnow

stopnow — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 07:40:26 +0000

GM sold this year 2.5 million cars in China. Someone would think that would create good paying jobs or even jobs – it doesn’t, because most of the cars GM sold in China were made abroad or in China.

The American dream never existed.

By: DrTLJones

DrTLJones — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:12:52 +0000

Those figures are testament to what has been noted regarding increasing inequality in an age of decline.

And actually what we have are only ‘themes and variations’ of a rather stale and trite symphony…
For a good 30 years, for more than a generation, the Republican domestic agenda has been fairly consistent, except when Bush II went rogue and ‘off budget’..

Reduce taxes.. hopefully permanently, especially for business and the rich (like they need it)..
Reduce the size of government (use your friendly private contractor instead); and
Reduce the social service delivery system (“Let’em eat food stamps”).

Who can forget, though many do, about the ‘Laffer Curve’, ‘flat’ taxes, the gold standard, voodoo and ‘trickle down economics”, which essentially holds that the rich, in the process of getting richer, deign to allow the rest of us to nibble on their crumbs and left-overs, gratefully mind you, lest they take it overseas, where they are more grateful. And while a rising tide lifts all boats.. yachts seem to need a whole lot more water, you know?.

Class Warfare?..Hell.. we’ve been getting massacred!

As an aside, I will confess in being tempted to eat the rich from time to time (even have a couple of recipes that I might share later), but because they so fat and bloated, just aggravate my cholesterol problems. Bad for your heart..not recommended….even with medication. Go ask Dr. Oz.

By: DWTJr

DWTJr — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:30:39 +0000

If we had a representative government (one person-one vote)then electing new people would be the answer. However, we see that the rich control-no new taxes. The social contract needs changing and this is only possible if the rich cannot buy influence. The question is: how is this done?…quickly.

By: Arshemble

Arshemble — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 10:54:46 +0000

There are 10 kinds of people in this world. People who know what a binary number is and those who don’t. The world doesn’t have a production problem. There is something of a lock out going on with people who want to work being denied the opportunity. With full employment, there is plenty to share. The problem is one of distribution. That is why the government has to be involved, because, without a referee, people can’t efficiently share. How does the government facilitate sharing? It redistibutes wealth. Everyone that uses the services of the underclass of people that do serivce jobs (house cleaning, lawn maintenance, teachers, police, firemen, road repair) is actually subsidized because the people who do those jobs can’t live decent lives without help. And we want them to lead decent lives because if they don’t we will live in cities where it is not safe to walk the streets. They actually get paid much less than the value for their work. Right now is a really good time for the government to borrow money to put people to work because money is cheap and it costs us more not to spend it (and you know that when you calculate how much it takes to do a minor repair verses rebuild entire infrastructure item after waiting too long because deterioration accelerates). This is where binary comes in. If you are smart you will see that 1 + 1 = 10. All these people not working are takers and we need to make them into givers, much more efficient, better for them, better for you, better for our country.