Quick look at the 2019 census data:
Real median household income is up *61%* since 1967.
Incomes also up 14% since 2007, making this business cycle even better than the 1990s boom
Here it is by age group over the life cycle in 1979, 2000, and 2019
And by age since 1979. Even incomes for young households up 8% since 2007
Here's nominal year over year growth in median HH income vs the unemployment rate (inverted) obviously showing a strong relationship between the two
Smaller gains for men working full time but again, their best business cycle yet (up 6% in real terms since 2007 peak)
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To be clear I am the source of the chart and I will link to the thread below to explain how I arrived at it given that JCT has not released a distributional analysis of OBBB without TCJA
Here is the thread, note I try to express some humility/doubts about accuracy given that we do not have final table from JCT on this. I am subtracting TCJA distributional table from the OBBB table
Here is the decomposition in which i take TPC's distribution of TCJA and remove it from their assessment of the entirety of OBBB. The residual should be the *new* tax cuts
B/c there is a lot of confusion on debt limit mechanics & law I will have a 🧵here.
First, using deficit consistent w/ CBO baseline adjusted for disaster relief & primary dealer median SOMA expectations, we'd exhaust EM and have X date in early August.
On Jan 2 the debt limit will be reinstated. Treasury is targeting $700 billion in cash on hand on that day as laid out in QRA documents home.treasury.gov/system/files/1…
$700 billion is the prudent amount of cash to hold on hand for cash management and is consistent with Treasury's internal guidelines. It covers 5 days worth of net outlays and redemptions. As our deficit grows, the prudent level of TGA rises
First, real hourly wages for the average worker are at an all time high.
Second, If we are actually interested in answering this question we'd look at how much output per hour a worker produces relative to what their comp. is per hour. /THREAD
We want to look at real net productivity (output less depreciation per hour) relative to real compensation per hour (pay) using output prices. We are interested in whether workers are paid for what they produce - not whether they are paid for what they consume. Here's that chart
Given that productivity is output per hour and pay is output per hour if we strip out the denominators we can answer this same question by looking at cumulative changes in the labor share. That's been flat over time (ie no spread between avg. pay and productivity)
First, I don't have a strong view on what is going on with investment (good/bad). I've conducted my own lit review of sorts and found the literature really conflicting, with many compelling theories & measures of investment to assess them by. No good definitive answers.
However, I do have an issue with Oren flatly asserting causality for his viewpoint without rejecting or even discussing plausible alternatives in the literature. On to the substance of his responses...
There’s a lot to digest in this @oren_cass piece but I want to start with his diagnosis of the problem – that there is a concerning decline in business investment. I am not so sure about that and his analysis is missing one big factor. THREAD
This is the headline chart that we are supposed to be concerned about - the evidence that wall street is wreaking havoc on the economy by sucking investment out of the private sector. A decline in *net* investment "from 4.1% in the 1970s and 80s to 2.5% in the 2010s"
Net nonresidential (or business) investment is indeed the right measure to focus on. We are concerned with new investment less depreciation (the cost of servicing that investment). So let's focus on what's going on with *net* investment for a bit...
THREAD/ some thoughts on why I'm skeptical of the net lending (savings & investment imbalance) / corporate savings glut / 'financializaiton" discussion as it pertains to the decline of biz investment 1/n
Whether it's Summers talking about secular stagnation, many great economists exploring a corporate savings glut or Marco Rubio arguing that we're seeing the "financialization" of the economy theres a suggestion of a big savings / investment imbalance
Basically, it posits that a declining labor share begat rising profits and saving… and without investment it begat a net lending corporate sector. Rubio has even claimed that we are in the midst of a disorder in the institutional arrangement of the American economy"