Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

[SodoffBush]

I'm looking at an old Buzzflash postcard showing four graphs dating from 1989 to 2003, highlighting the differences in the Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr. years. The Bush years have poor stats, the Clintoh years great stats.

Can anyone provide me the current stats for these categories:

Job Creation (in the negative 5 million category for 2003, down from plus 23 million in 2000)

Dow Jones Industrial Average (~9,500 in 2003, down from nearly 12,000 between 1999 and 2000)

Budget Surplus/Deficit (~$475,000,000,000 deficit in 2003, falling from a $200,000,000,000+ surplus in 2000)

Unemployment (close to 6.5% in 2003, up from about 3.9% in 2000)

[Hissyspit]

1. Go to Bureau of Labor Statistics for unemployment reports:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Unemployment is at 6.7%, I believe.

Department of Labor link:

http://www.dol.gov

Keep in mind Bush Admin cooks the books. Plays games with the numbers.

I don't know about job creation.

Dow Jones closed above 9,000 finally on Friday (?): 9,034.69

Budget deficit 2009 from wikipedia.org:

"With projected receipts significantly less than projected outlays, the budget proposed by President Bush predicts a net deficit of approximately 407 billion dollars, adding to a United States governmental debt of about $10.2 trillion."

[SodoffBush]

3. I thought things were bad in 2003

Buzzflash ought to update its postcard: Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?

I'll send the old postcards to GOP congressmembers, with the new stats written in. Thanks for your help.

[SodoffBush]

6. No job creation in 2008, only job loss

1.9 million as of the end of November

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/05/news/economy/jobs_november/

[pinqy]

12. How do they cook the books?

I've often heard people claim that this or that administration "cooks the books" for employment/unemployment or price indexes etc, but no one ever explains what exactly or how "they" are doing it. Neither the President nor the Secretary of Labor have access to any of the data until the night before the press release...after the release has already been written. So what and how do they cook the books?

[Beausoleil]

15. Check out this site for info

http://www.shadowstats.com/

This has been going on since Raygun.

[pinqy]

18. Oh, I'm familiar with shadowstats

but even he doesn't claim anyone actually cooks the books. He disagrees with methodology, but he's very much in the minority of economists and statisticians. Mostly he just asserts, without backing up his claims with any kind of reason. He prefers the unemployment figures using the old U6 without explaining his reasoning or addressing the actual methodological issues. He touts his version of the U6 as more accurate, but just because it's the broadest measure of unemployment (to the point of including some people who have jobs as "unemployed") doesn't mean it's the best or most accurate.

BLS responded to his and others criticisms about the CPI (and outright lies such as claiming that BLS substitutes hamburger for steak in the CPI) in Addressing Misconceptions about the Consumer Price Index He doesn't really make any real claims about unemployment except prefering the household survey to the establishment survey.

Of course it's impossible to analyze or discuss his methodology in any meaningful way since he doesn't actually explain his methodology except in the vaguest terms. He certainly doesn't do any data collection himself, so what are his sources and methods? Nobody knows.

[Beausoleil]

26. Maybe it's more of a general assumption

or realization that the average person has that "the government" doesn't compute the inflation and unemployment numbers as it used to and assumes there are nefarious reasons for it, and therefore it must be "cooking the books".

Plus there is a growing (probably healthy) general mistrust of government. The media doesn't help matters by not making any distinction between the old methodologies and the new.

[pinqy]

30. Maybe, sort of...

The defintitions of employed and unemployed haven't changed significantly since 1967. Only minor changes such as someone who is expecting to start a job in 30 days used to be considered unemployed regardless of whether or not s/he looked for work in the last 4 weeks. Since 1994 s/he would have to have looked or would be considered not in the labor force.

You're probably more right about the CPI and its massive redesign, part of which was to intentionally lower the effect of price increases. The reason is that the previous method gave the upper bound of price changes, which is most likely an overstatement, so calculating the average increase was changed to a geometric means formula at the base level. That's confusing and seems like "cooking the books" when it is methodologically sound. The use of hedonics for quality adjustment also feels like manipulation to people who aren't well versed in statistics and economics, which is probably most Americans.

[Beausoleil]

31. Obviously you know a lot more about this stuff than I do

but my own suspicion is that the reported CPI was "tinkered" with to allow the government to cap COLAs and corporations to give "raises" that don't meet actual cost of living increases. The result is that the middle class standard of living has actually gone down, while corporate profits have exploded over the same period due to the connivance of government.

Between 2002 and 2006, the wealthiest 10 percent of households saw more than 95 percent of the gains in income. And even within those rarefied strata, the gains tended to be concentrated at the very top. According to one study, the nation’s 15,000 richest families doubled their annual income, from $15 million to $30 million. And in that same period, corporate profits shot up by 68 percent—more than five times the growth seen in the overall economy.

Even as the wealthiest families have increased their holdings, the families at the center of the income spectrum saw their incomes shrink by 1 percent. In 2000, the average weekly earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers (70 percent of the workforce) amounted to $527 (in current dollars). Six years later, their wages had risen a mere $11 ...

Republished from Harper’s. January 2009 issue. By Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz. http://kelsocartography.com/blog/?tag=joseph-stiglitz

Granted, much of this is due to tax cuts for the rich, but it points to the fact that the middle class is being strangled because wages are not keeping up with the cost of living.

[cabluedem]

2. Nope. Things started going south before 9/11 for us. Hope * is happy. nt

[taterguy]

4. Yes

But that has to do with changes in my life that weren't influenced by whoever happened to be President.

[EnviroBat]

29. Same here.

Despite the Wall Street greed, and the corrupt bush administration, I made a number of well thought out choices in my life that have put me in a much better place. For example, when I started my job with the state I had the option to put money into a state-administered retirement plan, or diversify my investments in what are called "alternative" investments, (basically stocks, muni's, IRA's). I chose to put it all in the state program, and that seems like it was a wise choice given the losses others have suffered as of late.

[Double T]

5. Look around US; see the absolute destruction this administration has bestowed.......

to the entire world. Our nation can not afford anymore bushes.

[SodoffBush]

8. A lot of wingnuts lost their positions in November

I think there ought to be a list of those in Congress who are running in 2010 and to whose demise we should financially contribute to, something on order of this Rolling Stone list. A lot of these folks have been defeated since then. I want to start taking a personal interest in what's going on in other states.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12054520/the_10_worst_congressmen

[bdamomma]

13. no Jeb either.

[HughBeaumont]

7. Read this journal entry for overall job creation (or lack thereof):

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont/64

Puts the lie to the "tax cuts spur growth 'n' JAWBS!" myth.

[SodoffBush]

10. 9.4 million jobs lost since 2001

The article I posted above says 1.9 million jobs lost for 2008 as of end of November.

Time to start preparing to vote out the "best of the best."

http://www.conservative.org/archive2/Senate_standout.asp

[ogneopasno]

9. Yes, as of August. But it got worse since January 2004 before it got better.

[SodoffBush]

11. BUSH LIED AND OUR SOLDIERS DIED

That was the postcard Buzzflash printed May 24, 2006. The casualty stats on that date, with current stats in bold parenthesis, below:

U.S. military fatalities in Iraq: 2457 (4221)
U.S. military wounded in action in Iraq: 17,809 (30,634)
Coalition military fatalities in Iraq: 2679 (4,538)
Average number of troops dying per day: 2.31 (2.15)

I've added, to date:

US fatalities Afghanistan: 630
Coalition fatalities Afghanistan: 1043

[spinbaby]

14. Not too bad, actually

We've been lucky enough to keep our jobs. I think the biggest change has been in our sense of security--we used to feel more sure of the future, now we feel like we're about to get the rug pulled out from under us.

[slackmaster]

16. No, I am at the same job that I had then, and the pay has not kept up with cost of living

At least I am employed.

FIVE years ago today I was notified that my position (at a better-paying job than I have now) was to be terminated in one month.

[geardaddy]

17. Nope.

n/t

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

19. Financially? Yes, I Am.

My salary has gone up over 15 grand in the past 4 years.

[Zywiec]

20. How about your investments? n/t

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

21. Don't Really Have Any. House Value Is Still Fine Though.

[Zywiec]

23. That's awesome.

Getting a couple of 401K statements back from last quarter, I am definitely not better off in that respect.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

24. How Old Are You? If You Aren't Close To Retirement, Ignore The Immediate 401k Losses.

By the time you retire they'll have bounced back and you would have even more shares because you're buying them up now on the cheap (if you're actively contributing). If you are close to retirement, then that totally sucks.

[Zywiec]

25. I still have plenty of years until retirement

so I keep buying with dollar-cost averaging. I'm confident the market will turn-around.

[seabeyond]

22. i can finally say NO, it has hit us. with increases in food and everything else

healthcare and hubby on a wage we dont control (he sold business over a yr ago) we are bring in less than we did. and that is still with us cutting down on spending because of the increases

[RebelOne]

27. No, there has been no change for me.

In fact, my company has not given raises for 3 years. And they laid off 3 people. My department was composed of myself and 2 others. The other 2 were laid off. So, now I am doing more work for the same amount of money.

[uppityperson]

28. No, I am not. Owe more, making less.

[taught_me_patience]

32. I've been very lucky the last 4 years

By a combination of luck and hard work, my financial situation has improved tremendously. My salary has tripled and my investments have risen 5x. Many people have not experienced the same prosperity and I hope the economy turns around soon.

[Cleita]

33. I still have the same roof over my head and enough to eat, but

my disposable income has gone down, my medical expenses are three times as much and cover much less than back then. My pension is almost half of what it was due to the economy, so no I don't think I'm better off.

[Marr]

34. Certainly not. My retirement has shrunk by almost half,

my clients are spending less money, and everything costs more.