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U.S. Wages Have Fallen EVERY Quarter of the 'Recovery'
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U.S. Wages Have Fallen EVERY Quarter of the 'Recovery'
By Jeff Nielson (Click For Orignal)
For 6 ½ long years, we have been bombarded with the mythology known as “the U.S. economic recovery” by the mainstream media. Exposing this fantasy is simple, since the gulf between myth and reality has grown to such absurd proportions.
There is no better starting point than the farcical claim by Barack Obama that “10 million new jobs” have been created during this non-existent recovery. In fact, the U.S. government’s own numbers show that the total number of employed Americans has fallen by more than 3 million over that span, in spite of the population growth over those past 6 ½ years.
The chart above is now somewhat dated, as the St Louis Fed has deliberately changed the format of this chart in order to make it harder to reproduce. Updated, the U.S. civilian participation rate has now fallen to a 36-year low, and as the chart clearly shows, it has fallen at a faster rate since the start of this mythical recovery.
The lie: “10 million new jobs created”. The fact: more than 3 million jobs lost. This is a reality-gap of 13 million jobs, or exactly 2 million jobs per year. The U.S. economy hasn’t been “creating” 1.5 million new jobs per year. It’s been losing roughly ½ million jobs every year of this fantasy-recovery.
Then we have the “heartbeat” of the U.S. economy, its velocity of money. A chart of this heartbeat shows that it has plummeted far lower than at any other time in the 56-year history of this data series. This doesn’t merely show a dying economy, it shows a dead economy.
As for the supposed “GDP growth” over this 6 ½ year span, falsifying this statistic requires nothing more than lying about the rate of inflation. Here again, the lie is obvious. The U.S. (and other Western governments) pretend that inflation is near-zero, while in the real world, food and housing prices have been soaring at the fastest rate in our lifetime over the past 10 – 15 years.
Then we have U.S. energy consumption. Again the picture is clear. Overall U.S. energy consumption peaked in 2007 and has been falling since then, while official gasoline consumption has been plummeting for several years. Growing economies use more energy. Shrinking economies use less energy. Case closed.
All this is old news to regular readers, however. What has been less easy to document in any sort of definitive way has been the fall in U.S. wages. The problem is that to express wages meaningfully, we must use “real dollars”, i.e. we must adjust these wages for inflation. With the U.S. government only providing nominal data about U.S. wages, and consistently lying about the actual inflation rate, we have lacked the data to make any conclusive statement.
A recent boast by the U.S. government/Corporate media (i.e. another false claim) has now provided us with a clearer picture here, going back to the beginning of this imaginary recovery. In trying to downplay the absence of any wage-growth in the U.S. in Q2 of this year, the propaganda machine made this claim:
…That is down from a 2.6 percent increase in the first quarter [of 2015], which was the biggest in 6 ½ years. [emphasis mine]
The claim is that nominal wages in the U.S. rose at the fastest rate “in 6 ½ years” in the first quarter of 2015, i.e. the highest rate during the entire pseudo-recovery. Now let’s discount that number with the (real) rate of inflation, in order to get a real-dollar number for U.S. wages.
A recent commentary pegged U.S. inflation at a conservative level of 12% per year. That number is substantially higher for the Working Poor (and poor), who now comprise the majority of nearly all Western societies. Translating that to a quarterly number (i.e. dividing it by four), we get a quarterly inflation-rate in the U.S. of 3% -- significantly higher than the supposed “growth” in wages of 2.6%.
Thus the U.S. government itself has now provided us with a definitive picture on U.S. wages. During Q1 of this year, the high-water mark for U.S. wage “growth” during the entire Recovery, U.S. wages were still falling. Ipso facto, U.S. wages have been falling every quarter of this recovery.
Now we begin to see the whole truth in the U.S. labour market, versus the absurd, official claim of lots of “new jobs” and “rising wages”. U.S. employment has been falling, not rising, every quarter, every year. U.S. wages have been falling, not rising, every quarter, every year. But that picture is still incomplete.
The total number of hours worked by the Working Poor is also falling, and in 18 out of 20 of the U.S.’s industrial sectors, total number of hours worked is still lower than during the so-called Great Recession. This is also reflected in the fall in the percentage of full-time employees.
To summarize: since the beginning of the imaginary U.S. economic recovery, there are millions fewer Americans who are now employed. Their wages have been falling for every quarter of the “recovery”, and they are also working fewer hours. Growing economies create more jobs, shrinking economies lose jobs. Strong economies have rising (real) wages, weak economies have falling wages. Once again we see the supposed U.S. recovery is pure mythology.
However, with respect to the destruction of the U.S. standard of living, to truly appreciate what has been done to the U.S. population (and the populations of nearly all of the Corrupt West), we must look at the picture over a much longer term. In the 40 years before the beginning of this imaginary recovery, the wages of the Average American fell by roughly 50% (in real dollars).
Now the descent of the majority of the U.S. population to Third World status becomes crystal clear. From 1970 to the beginning of 2009 (i.e. the current “recovery”), U.S. wages fell roughly 50%. Then came the mythical Recovery, and U.S. wages have continued to fall, quarter after quarter after quarter. The Great Recovery has been worse than the Great Recession which came before it.
What do we call it when a nation experiences a “great recession”, and then the economy continues to crumble at an even faster rate after that, year after year? We call it a Greater Depression.
Shrinking economy. Losing jobs. Falling wages. Declining energy consumption. No “heartbeat”. Has anything been left out, in describing this U.S. economic Armageddon? Certainly.
The U.S. government is obviously bankrupt. The U.S. dollar is obviously worthless. The U.S. economy has been run completely into the ground. When the current, assorted bubbles are deliberately popped (almost certainly in 2016, or late-2015), and Old-Man Buffett goes on a massive shopping spree with the $60+ billion he is now currently hoarding, there will be nothing left but economic rubble. And Milton Friedman will be smiling, from (way) down in his final, resting place.
U.S. Wages Have Fallen EVERY Quarter of the 'Recovery'
By Jeff Nielson (Click For Orignal)
Sprott Money first to announce state-of-the-art fully private (NON BANK) Cayman asset storage --> http://www.321gold.com/info/053015_sprott.html
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This is what voting within a criminal system of tyranny and plunder gets you; What ignoring their criminality gets us.
Soon we will have to take up the only vote that counts and the only one they truly understand.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
Rejection: The system of fraud and theft that has been built up upon the backs of the American people is dependent upon our backs. Withdraw our backs, Stop paying, and the whole scheme collapses. This is our greatest weapon.
The Four Rs
Rejection: Stop Paying, Stop Obeying, Stop Playing, Stop-up the System.
Revolution: It is inevitable, so prepare, as they are.
Restoration: Restore the American people, country and Constitutional republic.
Retribution: The guilty must answer for their crimes against the American people and the Constitution.
I wrote my blog today then read this article... made my blood run cold. They are so similar. I even added a link from my blog to this article!
http://incapp.org/blog/?p=2628
I have the solution. It's called, "The New American Way of Life."
For a guy and his girlfriend with two kids all you have to do is follow these proven steps:
1. Don't marry her!
2. Always use your mom's address to get your mail.
3. The guy buys a house.
4. The guy rents out house to his girlfriend with his 2 kids.
5. Section 8 will pay $900 a month for a 3 bedroom home.
6. Girlfriend signs up for Obamacare so guy doesn't have to pay for family insurance.
7. Girlfriend gets to go to college for free being a single mother
8. Girlfriend gets $600 a month for food stamps.
9. Girlfriend gets a free cell phone.
10. Girlfriend get free utilities.
11. Guy moves into home, but continues to use moms address for his mail.
12. Girlfriend claims one kid and guy claims the other kid on their tax forms. Now both get to claim head of household at $1800 credit.
13. Girlfriend gets $1,800 a month disability for being "crazy" or having a "bad back" and never has to work again. This plan is perfectly legal and is being executed now by millions of people.
A married couple with a stay at home mom yields $0 dollars. An unmarried couple with stay at home mom nets $21,600 disability + $10,800 free housing + $6,000 free obamacare + $6,000 free food + $4,800 free utilities + $6,000 pell grant money to spend + $12,000 a year in college tuition free from pell grant + $8,800 tax benefit for being a single mother = $75,000 a year in benefits!
Any idea why the country is $18 trillion plus in debt and half the population is sitting on their ass letting the other half pay their way???
Here is my favorite Great Depression story.
In 2009, I was in a local thrift store. The cashier recognized me and knew I had a management background. She said that I should apply for the assistant manager job. So I asked her what does the A.M. do? By this time the manager had wandered out and began listing like 20 responsibilities, unloading trucks and pricing items, scheduling employees, hiring and firing, reconciling money, the list seemed endless.
I asked her, what does it pay? She looked me straight in the eye and said 8.25 an hr with a 50 cent raise in 90 days.
My gaze never left her and just as soon as she said that- I said "I made that kind of money in 1979 as a journeyman freight- thrower for Albertsons." Insulted, she said "we have plenty of applicants." I said, "I'm sure you do, I just won't be one of them."
That's what happens in a Wreckovery. What's the big deal.
Heinz Kraft will remove 2500 job today news!
Ketchup maker HJ Heinz, the company controlled by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway
Relax! They just did it so they can hire 2500 illegal aliens and pay them half the wages as the american they laid off.
Krafty will be doing just fine. Whew!
A job now a days is often a temporary and unprofitable nuisance.
Kondratieff was right. We're in the winter cycle (but denying it), just looking at the Fed's own charts. For those who have trouble understanding his cycle, for which the govt murdered him, here's an easier way to think about it.
Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in three generations.
Grandpa built it; dad ran it; and junior squandered it. About right?!
I wonder how much of the pressure on wages is due to an abundance of low-skilled workers emigrating north to the United States? I mean, they've always been emigrating but not in the numbers we've been seeing these last few years. Seems everyone is preparing for a mass clemency.
The real unemployment rate in the US is >20%, close to that of the Great Depression. Job "growth" in July are in domestic service positions—waitresses and bartenders, retail clerks, transportation, warehousing, finance and insurance, health care and social assistance. Mostly low wage, few/no benefits, no job security.
See: The US Economy Continues Its Collapse by Paul Craig Roberts; Link: www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/08/10/us-economy-continues-collapse-paul-c...
Do you really believe that growth can continue forever in this biosphere with finite resources? Especially considering the many biological cycles that require energy and MUST keep turning in order to preserve life, at least as we know it?
Fucking morons, the planet will be fine, it's the people that are fucked.
There are tems of thousands of asteroids that contain more "limited resources" than man has used in our entire existence. I, my ofspring, and fellow travelers are going to go to them.
Growth can still happen, but it would be a different type of growth, We look at the past and assume that is the way it always must be. As long as people believe that they must have the next cool toy and screwing thy neighbor is right and proper, things will continue down hill......
for doing that they need money - there are no more real money, just as simple as that. now the social enclaves
live from their fat - how long you think this can last? look into the nature for examples right under someones nose.
Real money can mean a number of things and I expect a barter economy to be the new, cool thing pretty soon......
well, it is - it is called cash-in-hand work :)
Just as simple as that. If people would know - learnt, how really economical growth was achieved by the human specie since it's inception it would be easy peasy to see it.
all it was territorial expansion and grabbing of new resources after depletion and overpopulation of the old habitat - guess why we needed a global economy and now this one
also reached its limits to support growth. now it is - we just started it, the self-cannibalization phase, guess how this one is going to end up.
I actually resent the gratuitous attack on Milton Friedman. Judge not lest you be judged. "The freedom to choose" is a timeless extension of our God given rights. I own Sprott silver and gold shares through PSLV and PHYS. I'm sure other share holders share my oppinion on Milton Friedman.
Funny you interpreted that as an attack, because I had the opposite reading.
I thought they were saying he'd be smiling in his grave because this proves he was right, since we haven't really be running a true "Chicago" style economy for a while.
However, it was that line of thinking that got us here... in my opinion. But that doesn't matter. It just interesting how you took away the opposite of me.
"Way down in his final resting place" implies that he would be judged and damned immediately upon death.
Don't Worry! Hope and Change will fix this down trend, and the 2,500 dollars a year we will save on ObamaCare will make up the difference.
And there will be plenty of new jobs for the children of working people when barry starts the war with Russia. After the end of the two week Russo-US war (Russians are like the French, they are notorious for rolling over when invaded), the two US military casualties will go home to a full recovery, while the rest of our troops march on to Beijing with little or no opposition. In fact, they will be greeted with flowers in Tianamen Square.
Forgot your /s
Praise be to Dear Leader.