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this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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I’m an avid planet money podcast listener, but a recent episode pissed me off so much. They were asking why consumer sentiment is so bad when all the economic news was good. It’s like they don’t pay attention to how most leading economic indicators are nothing more than a barometer of how rich people are doing. They expect us to be happy that inflation has slowed, even though prices are still high and it took high interest rates to do it (something that punishes poor borrowers but rewards rich investors). They expect us to be happy unemployment is low when jobs pay horribly.
"You will own nothing, and be happy."
-WEF ç 2020
Fuck that bullshit.
I feel like we should be able to quantify what "employed" is in the unemployment metrics.... Like, if you barely have a job and it pays you next to nothing (below a living wage) then you should be considered to be in the unemployment pool.
I think if that was the way it was counted, then the numbers would actually look atrocious.
In all actual fact, they specifically exclude people who are not actively looking for a job from the unemployment numbers. Historically this was to reduce the unemployment numbers from all the unemployed spouses that were stay at home parents or whatever. Now it's just a way to mask how many have gotten so thoroughly fucked by the system that they gave up.
They do track this. It's called underemployment. On the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, you can find this table which indirectly gives this data: the difference between U-5 and U-6. Underemployment is about 2.4%.
2.4% is way too low.
AFAIK, underemployment is more on the lines of having someone overqualified doing the work at the pay rate of that lower worker.
Eg. A doctor working as a personal support worker.
A doctor would be horrendously over qualified for a job as a PSW, but if they're doing that work for the same pay as a PSW, they're under employed. This is an extreme example, but it demonstrates the point using jobs that I feel most people would be familiar with. If you're not, then the only hint I can give is that I believe the role of PSW used to be and occasionally still is referred to in hospitals as an "orderly".
There's still a non-trivial number of people with doctorates working at places like Starbucks and McDonald's... Who are underemployed, but I'm specifically saying that if you're "employed" but you only get, say, 5 hours a week, and you have to hold four jobs just to clock 30+ hours in a week, or you need four jobs to make ends meet, then that's an insufficiently employed person. IMO, anyone in that situation would be better off on social assistance, where available. Being incapable of finding a full time job or finding a job that will be able to provide full time hours, should be counted.
Wages, especially median wages (working class wages), have surpassed inflation almost every month this year. Are you actually rooting for deflation? And thinking that would not be worse?
Some have, many haven’t. Honestly I just don’t see those numbers in reality. All throughout this, I’ve only gotten the standard 2% annual COLA. Therefore I am down around 14% in real wages. Sorry, the idea that some median wage has gone up is little comfort. I can tell you middle class engineering salaries have not moved to match inflation, at least in my area.
And, no, a little deflation would not be bad. Sure, sustained deflation could be a problem, but after such a period of high inflation, prices going back down a little would probably spur consumer spending.
That’s my issue.
I was an engineer in 2019. Since then, I’ve completed an MBA and became a project manager with a team of engineers under me. Even though my salary looks larger, my buying power is roughly equal to what it was four years ago. Without the education and title, I’d be far worse off.
Meanwhile, I see large increases for upper management as well as the union employees who have gotten 30% raises.
I wish I had roughly equal. I'm down over $10,000. But other jobs I look at pay little more with worse befits.
I work for a city, so most have gotten the same increase. However, the new mayor did hire several "senior strategists" for much higher pay. And he also gave a massive raise to the police, and a slightly larger raise than everyone to the teamsters. But most everyone else continues to be screwed by inflation.
Dude, quit your job and do the same thing for someone else for a 20% raise.
Like, if you're sticking with a place that won't pay you, of course you're not making more. You yourself acknowledge wages are up but you're not doing anything to capitalize on it.
Also
Consumer spending is still through the roof. We don't want to spur on spending right now. Inflation follows excess demand
If you would read what I wrote, pay across my industry is low. Not everyone can just job-hop for an instant 20% raise. The only way I could do that is by moving to a higher COL city, which isn't going to help (besides the issue of leaving behing family).
My point is, that economists worry about deflation because it has the potential to kill consumer spending. People will stop buying stuff, they say, if things will just keep getting cheaper, as people will just wait for the price to come down. But that behavior would require a long-term trend with deflationary expectations. Besides, with most product quality being garbage thanks to planned obsolescence, people will still have to buy stuff anyway, so I somewhat doubt that traditional wisdom.
Economists want to pretend that undoing the 20% rise in prices (much more for many items) would be catastrophic, but I highly disagree.
"Doctors say that vaccines are safe, but I highly disagree"
There is no position that should not be able to withstand a little scrutiny (and vaccines have withstood it fine). There has been so few modern examples of deflation, it is hard for them to point to any empirical evidence. And economists, who typically see salaries supported by the rich and powerful, are not exactly unbiased.
But, yeah, fuck me for being angry that my earning power has been massively decreased.
Dudes a upper management type who spends his whole work day(wow almost like his job isn't actually that difficult) lecturing people on Lemmy why they should just be happy or make some simple changes to fix their own problems. Read his comment history it's hilarious.
We’re behind by decades and tens of thousands of dollars. A couple months in some jobs is fuckin’ nothing.