There are problems with the American economy.
- Housing affordability
- Wage suppression
- Labor rights being denied
- Massive Inequity
Way too many people are struggling just to squeak by.
IMHO, we can fix an awful lot of those difficulties by fixing the tax code. We've seen the long term results of the Trickle Down thing, and we have to face the simple fact that it was bullshit from the start. Poppy Bush nailed it perfectly in 1980 when he called it Voodoo Economics.
For every dollar in direct stimulus (the kind Biden and the Dems pushed thru in 2021), we see, on average, a boost in economic activity of $1.19. For every dollar in tax cuts (like the GOP's TaxScam2017®) we see 59¢ in return. Tell me you wouldn't fire your broker if he kept pushing you in the wrong fucking direction on this shit.
My point is that Biden and the Democrats are working the problems, and making some changes that are showing some pretty great results.
I realize I sound like a cheerleader, but when it works, it works - and we should all be able to acknowledge that.
So lemme see - Biden's doing as well as anybody could do handling numerous foreign affairs clusterfucks (including 2 hot wars and other periodic flare-ups), he's got the economy starting to click, he's got us poised on the verge of enormous Climate Change progress, and he's not a fucking Nazi.
So if you're dumb enough to be looking for a reason to vote Biden-Harris that doesn't stop at "HE BEAT THAT DOG-ASS NAZI TRUMP", then you've got plenty to go on.
Americans’ wealth grew by 37% from 2019 to 2022, an astonishing pace of accumulation that helps explain why the U.S. economy has remained robust, according to the latest report on consumer finances released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve.
U.S. households’ real median net worth grew to $192,900 by the end of 2022, up from $141,100 recorded three years prior, according to the latest Survey of Consumer Finances. The rapid pace of wealth growth was the largest three-year increase recorded in what the Fed described as the modern survey results. It was more than double the next-fastest increase on record, according to the banks.
That's a 37% increase since the pandemic.
The Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances is ordinarily conducted every three years and is one of the primary sources of information on the financial condition of different types of U.S. families, but was delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The data released Wednesday are from surveys conducted between March and December 2022.
The figures shed fresh light on just how much financial strength American households were able to build up throughout the course of the pandemic, as generous federal stimulus payments and a slowdown in spending in 2020 allowed families to accumulate savings and pay down debt. Easy-money policies allowed households to refinance mortgages at ultralow rates, while student-loan forbearance programs put payments on hold for tens of millions of borrowers.
As a result, all measures of what the survey terms “financial fragility” declined between 2019 and 2022. The median leverage ratio, or a family’s total debt relative to its total assets, declined to its lowest level in two decades, at 29.2%. The median ratio of debt payments to income ratio also dropped to its lowest level on record, at 13.4%.
That combination of soaring net worth and rising affordability of debt payments helps to explain why the economy has been able to defy expectations and remain so resilient in the face of high inflation and rapidly rising interest rates. With more cash on hand, households have been able to keep up a surprisingly strong level of spending, which has propped up the labor market and helped stave off a long-anticipated recession.
Americans’ surge in net worth was helped along by rising homeownership rates, the increase in home values, higher stock prices, greater overall participation in investing, and, to some extent, higher incomes. Americans who owned their homes or participated in the stock market were more likely to have built up wealth between 2019 and 2022, Federal Reserve economists said.
By 2021, U.S. household median income hit $70,300, a 3% increase from the prior survey. But the mean household income increased 15% from $123,400 recorded in 2018 to $141,900 in 2021.
The income gains were “relatively widespread,” though there were variances among demographic groups, according to the Fed. Median income rose by 1% for white households over the three-year span, for example, but declined by 2% for Black families and fell by 1% for Hispanic.
Other big wealth generators, homeownership and stock-market participation, also increased slightly between 2019 and 2022. The homeownership rate rose to 66.1% of the population, according to the Fed. The median net housing value rose from $139,100 in 2019 to $201,000 in 2022, a positive for homeowners. This was due, in large part, to the fact that home prices rose and debt was relatively flat.
But for those looking to buy, things were getting tougher. Housing affordability fell to historic lows, with the median home worth more than 4.6 times the median family income.
Investing activity also picked up. About two-thirds of working-age families reported they invested in a retirement plan during the 2022 survey period. Roughly one in five households invested in stocks, up from the 15.2% recorded in the 2019 survey. That had a measurable impact given the “sizable rise in major stock indexes” over this period, according to the Fed. All major income groups experienced robust growth in the median and average values of their investments.
In addition to bulking up the asset side of the household balance sheet, Americans also reduced their debt obligations over the course of 2019 to 2022. The median leverage ratio—a household’s total debt relative to total assets—declined to 29.2%, the lowest recorded rate in 20 years, according to the Fed. Only about 6.5% of U.S. families with debt had payment-to-income ratios above 40% as of 2022, the lowest rate on record.
Although the Fed’s survey data only extends through the end of 2022, the relative strength of U.S. consumers has extended into 2023 as well, despite the spending down of pandemic-era savings, higher interest rates, and inflation rates persistently above the Fed’s 2% target.
The deleveraging Americans did during the pandemic has continued to keep consumer spending levels up, according to new, separate research released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The large swath of households that took advantage of low interest rates and extra savings to pay down debt, paired with forbearance programs like the pause on student-loan payments, led to significant, sustained improvements in household cash flows.
About 14 million households refinanced their mortgages, which reduced housing debt by about $30 billion annually through 2021, the New York Fed researchers found. Starting in 2020, the researchers calculated, the additional cash flow available for consumption amounted to about $450 billion.
That extra cash has helped drive the unexpectedly steady levels of high consumer spending. While spending growth has retreated somewhat from its 2022 levels, the six-month average of 5.4% is well above its prepandemic level of 3.1% in February 2020. That, in turn, has helped keep readings of gross domestic product on the upswing, given that consumer spending is a huge engine of economic activity.
But with higher interest rates bearing down on consumers and continued restrictions on purchasing power, economists question how long U.S. households can sustain the spending.
It's time for somebody to step up and save Capitalism from the Capitalists - again.
That someone has always been a Progressive, and those Progressives are all on the Democrats' side of the aisle now.
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