Macro Roundup

Occupational deaths have dropped btw 1970 and 2019“…In 1970, around 14,000 workers were killed on the job. That’s somewhere around 10,000 more deaths yearly than the number of those who perished in the entire Iraq War. Although the workforce had more than doubled since then, the number of occupational deaths in the United States has dropped to around 5,100….”

David Harsanyi, "Bernie Sanders is blatantly wrong: We’re far better off than in 1975," New York Post, February 21, 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/02/21/bernie-sanders-is-blatantly-wrong-were-far-better-off-than-in-1975/

Bernie Sanders is blatantly wrong: We’re far better off than in 1975

A record-high number of Americans, 90 percent, say they are satisfied with their personal lives, according to Gallup. And 74 percent are optimistic they will continue being financially satisfied. Needless to say, the United States will never be a utopia, but for the vast majority of its citizens, most things are going in the right direction.

During the Democratic presidential debate this week, Bernie Sanders, lamenting how a once-prosperous society had been hollowed out by capitalism, claimed we are no better off today than we were many years ago. It’s a shame not a single debate moderator ever challenges this farcical assertion. In Sanders’ telling, “people... after 45 years of work are not making a nickel more than they did 45 years ago.”

For those who weren’t alive then, the 1970s were largely a crime-ridden decade of stagnant economics, city bankruptcies, crushing energy prices, sky-high interest rates, institutional rot, garbage and retirement-destroying inflation. Though it was a far better place than the Communist hot spots Sanders praised during those years, it certainly wasn’t ideal.

And a big part of the post-’70s economic boom we’re still experiencing today — the one that certain progressive and some statist right-wingers like to disparage — was propelled by policies that freed Americans from overbearing technocratic oversight, intrusive regulations and stifling taxes that undermined growth.

The alleged “wage stagnation” to which Sanders and others are constantly referring is a myth. For one thing, “wage stagnation” fails to take into account the health-care benefits, pensions, vacations, family leave and other perks now embedded in job packages — somewhere around 30 percent of an employee’s overall benefits.

Once those benefits are added, Americans probably have seen about a 45 percent wage increase since 1964. More important, the amount of time we work to buy things we need is less. What we buy does more, and it’s of higher quality. Does anyone believe that a dollar spent on medical care in 1975 equals a dollar spent today?

Partly because of a worldwide retreat from collectivism, extreme poverty has dramatically decreased. Massive new markets have opened to us. Despite the perception of many, medium-household incomes are at an all-time high. The middle class is growing — especially the upper-middle class.

In the past 50 years, spending on food and clothing as a share of family income has fallen from 42 percent to 17 percent. Your house is probably more expensive than the average house was in 1975, but it’s also more comfortable and safer.

The year Sanders graduated from college, less than 6 percent of his fellow Americans — the majority of them wealthy, very few of them minorities or women — were enrolled in higher education. In 1975, only around 11 percent were enrolled in college. According to the Federal Reserve study, millennials are the most educated generation, with 65 percent of them possessing at least an associate’s degree.

Better education, soaring productivity and technological advances allow an increasing number of Americans to pick vocations that are safer, less monotonous and more rewarding.

In 1970, around 14,000 workers were killed on the job. That’s somewhere around 10,000 more deaths yearly than the number of those who perished in the entire Iraq War. Although the workforce had more than doubled since then, the number of occupational deaths in the United States has dropped to around 5,100.

There’s a decent chance that Sanders’ heart attack would have killed a 78-year-old man in 1975. If not, it would have required dangerous surgery. Despite a small dip recently, life expectancy has skyrocketed in the United States over the past 45 years — adding more than six years since 1975.

Most of these developments, not incidentally, were brought to us by profit-driven companies.

In 1975, the child mortality rate was 18.8 per 1,000. In 2019, it was 5.7. Fatalities due to weather events have plunged. Deaths due to air pollution — surely near its smoggy height in 1975 — have fallen, as well. We have cleaner water and cleaner streets.

Also, you have a supercomputer in your pocket that offers you instant access to all human knowledge.

Yes, some Americans still suffer, and some of our goods and services are more expensive than they once were (usually due to market intervention). But we are, by nearly every quantifiable measure, collectively better off today than ever before.

Ed noted:“As of 2018, the average wage for the above-average category was $93,990 compared to $80,323 in 2009, while the average wage for the below-average category was $34,996 in 2009 compared to $41,539 in 2018.”

Paul Kirby, "Mid-Hudson Valley employment growth tied to low-paying jobs, Marist report finds,"Daily Freeman, February 22, 2020, https://www.dailyfreeman.com/news/local-news/mid-hudson-valley-employment-growth-tied-to-low-paying-jobs/article_2e41de7a-54bf-11ea-9d62-03a59b7914da.html

Mid-Hudson Valley employment growth tied to low-paying jobs, Marist report finds

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — Employment growth in the Mid-Hudson Valley region is marked with low-paying jobs, a new Marist College study has found.

The study, known as “Special Report: Employment in the Hudson Valley 2018,” analyzes data from the state Department of Labor. It shows that most job growth in the region is tied to low-wage positions.

“Since the Great Recession, job growth in traditionally low-wage sectors has outpaced job-growth in high-wage sectors,” said Christy Huebner Caridi, director of the college’s Bureau of Economic Research, which conducted the study, in a prepared statement announcing the report. “The metric for examining the impact of this phenomena on household income is the increase in the number of persons with more than one job.”

Huebner Caridi also pointed out that the low-paying job growth is the continuation of a trend also noted in last year’s report, which showed growing income inequality in the region.

“The distribution of unearned income within the Hudson Valley is highly skewed,” Huebner Caridi said.

The report also found that in Ulster County, for the 2009-2018 period, "Private-sector employment advanced 0.7 percent on the year, falling relative to the county’s long-term performance, and the performance of both the region and the state."

Health care and social assistance remained the top-employer in Ulster County for the same period, the report shows, "accounting for 20.1 percent of total private sector employment followed by retail trade -18 percent of total private sector employment."

According to the Bureau’s data, Westchester County was the most unequal county in the region, followed by Dutchess and Rockland counties.

The report includes details by county for the seven-county Hudson Valley region and also offers comparisons to statewide information. Other key findings include:

• Private sector employment accounts for 84.1 percent of total employment in the Hudson Valley;

• Health care and social assistance remained the top private-sector employers followed by retail;

• The top five fastest-growing industries in the region are: mining; construction, agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting; administrative and waste services; and health care and social assistance.

• Throughout the region, the sectors that paid the highest average wages were: management of companies and enterprises; finance and insurance; and utilities, and professional and technical services. Accommodation and food services paid the lowest wage.

• On the year, average private-sector wages ($58,351) were 25.9 percent lower than the statewide average ($73,467) and 7.0 percent higher than the balance of the state, defined as New York State less the New York City Region ($54,299).

• As of 2018, the average wage for the above-average category was $93,990 compared to $80,323 in 2009, while the average wage for the below-average category was $34,996 in 2009 compared to $41,539 in 2018.

• As of 2018, above-average wage sectors accounted for 52 percent of total wages and 32 percent of total employment, compared to 54 percent of total wages and 34 percent of total employment in 2009.

• Putnam County is the most dependent on commuter income at 55.5 percent, followed by Westchester at 31.8 percent. Over the five-year period, commuter income has grown more than twice as fast as non-commuter income.

Note I reached out to Caridi the reports author to ask if the wage numbers were real or nominal and if the average wage numbers reflected full time or full and part time workers as it wasn’t made clear by the report. But Caridi didn’t reply to followups.

great chart from Bloomberg highlights an EPI analysis of CPS data that suggests low skill labor is high cost labor in that the bottom 10% of workers in terms of real annual earnings only see wage gains in tight labor markets (1995-2000 and 2014-2018, presumably 2020)

Katia Dmitrieva and Alexandre Tanzi, "Trump’s ‘Blue-Collar Boom’ Is Hard to Detect in Some Wage Data,"Bloomberg, February 20, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-20/inequality-endured-through-record-u-s-expansion-study-shows