From The Atlantic Monthly:
Thursday’s annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau’s principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush.
It’s not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.
On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country’s condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton’s two terms, often substantially.
The Census’ final report card on Bush’s record presents an intriguing backdrop to today’s economic debate. Bush built his economic strategy around tax cuts, passing large reductions both in 2001 and 2003. Congressional Republicans are insisting that a similar agenda focused on tax cuts offers better prospects of reviving the economy than President Obama’s combination of some tax cuts with heavy government spending. But the bleak economic results from Bush’s two terms, tarnish, to put it mildly, the idea that tax cuts represent an economic silver bullet.
I guess the issue for debate is: What, if anything, does this show or signify? As the article goes on to say:
Economists would cite many reasons why presidential terms are an imperfect frame for tracking economic trends. The business cycle doesn’t always follow the electoral cycle. A president’s economic record is heavily influenced by factors out of his control. Timing matters and so does good fortune.
But few would argue that national economic policy is irrelevant to economic outcomes. And rightly or wrongly, voters still judge presidents and their parties largely by the economy’s performance during their watch. In that assessment, few measures do more than the Census data to answer the threshold question of whether a president left the day to day economic conditions of average Americans better than he found it.
silenus
September 22, 2009, 1:21am
2
The Census Bureau is composed entirely of Communists and Muslims, so any data they generate is by definition wrong.
Bartman
September 22, 2009, 1:32am
3
So theoretically, if I wished to be employed at the Census Bureau would I have to be both a Communist and a Muslim, or would one or the other be OK?
Only if you apply to the Census Bureau’s Department of the Bleeding Obvious.
Are we surprised by this? At all? I have posted the below here in the past. The book Unequal Democracy shows that since WWII the country does notably better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. Written by an economist he even tried to account for lag between changes of presidents. The effect is still there and stark.
What is notable, for all the Republican whining on tax-and-spend liberals stealing their hard earned money is the rich people did better under the Democrats too. The Dems took more but the country was better off overall which benefited rich folk as well as poor.
I call the first fact the Great Partisan Growth Divide. Simply put, the United States economy has grown faster, on average, under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.
The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.
That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut.
<snip>
It is well known that income inequality in the United States has been on the rise for about 30 years now — an unsettling development that has finally touched the public consciousness. But Professor Bartels unearths a stunning statistical regularity: Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all. And the bad news for America’s poor is that Republicans have won five of the seven elections going back to 1980.
<snip>
The accompanying table, which is adapted from the book, tells a remarkably consistent story. It shows that when Democrats were in the White House, lower-income families experienced slightly faster income growth than higher-income families — which means that incomes were equalizing. In stark contrast, it also shows much faster income growth for the better-off when Republicans were in the White House — thus widening the gap in income.
The table also shows that families at the 95th percentile fared almost as well under Republican presidents as under Democrats (1.90 percent growth per year, versus 2.12 percent), giving them little stake, economically, in election outcomes. But the stakes were enormous for the less well-to-do. Families at the 20th percentile fared much worse under Republicans than under Democrats (0.43 percent versus 2.64 percent). Eight years of growth at an annual rate of 0.43 percent increases a family’s income by just 3.5 percent, while eight years of growth at 2.64 percent raises it by 23.2 percent.
SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/business/31view.html?_r=1
Are we surprised by this? At all? I have posted the below here in the past. The book Unequal Democracy shows that since WWII the country does notably better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. Written by an economist (a self described apolitical one at that) he even tried to account for lag between changes of presidents. The effect is still there and stark.
What is notable, for all the Republican whining on tax-and-spend liberals stealing their hard earned money is the rich people did better under the Democrats too. The Dems took more but the country was better off overall which benefited rich folk as well as poor.
I call the first fact the Great Partisan Growth Divide. Simply put, the United States economy has grown faster, on average, under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.
The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.
That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut.
<snip>
It is well known that income inequality in the United States has been on the rise for about 30 years now — an unsettling development that has finally touched the public consciousness. But Professor Bartels unearths a stunning statistical regularity: Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all. And the bad news for America’s poor is that Republicans have won five of the seven elections going back to 1980.
<snip>
The accompanying table, which is adapted from the book, tells a remarkably consistent story. It shows that when Democrats were in the White House, lower-income families experienced slightly faster income growth than higher-income families — which means that incomes were equalizing. In stark contrast, it also shows much faster income growth for the better-off when Republicans were in the White House — thus widening the gap in income.
The table also shows that families at the 95th percentile fared almost as well under Republican presidents as under Democrats (1.90 percent growth per year, versus 2.12 percent), giving them little stake, economically, in election outcomes. But the stakes were enormous for the less well-to-do. Families at the 20th percentile fared much worse under Republicans than under Democrats (0.43 percent versus 2.64 percent). Eight years of growth at an annual rate of 0.43 percent increases a family’s income by just 3.5 percent, while eight years of growth at 2.64 percent raises it by 23.2 percent.
SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/business/31view.html?_r=1
This is great news for the Kerry campaign!
What role does Congress play in this?
The thing that really shocks me isn’t that the median American family actually lost ground under The Worst President Ever; that’s no surprise at all, at this point.
What I find far more disturbing is that the gains in median household income from 1973 to 2008 are so small (from $45,533 to $50,303, a gain of $4770), despite our country’s being much richer than it was in 1973, that the aftermath of this recession could wipe out those gains almost entirely.
RTFirefly:
The thing that really shocks me isn’t that the median American family actually lost ground under The Worst President Ever; that’s no surprise at all, at this point.
What I find far more disturbing is that the gains in median household income from 1973 to 2008 are so small (from $45,533 to $50,303, a gain of $4770), despite our country’s being much richer than it was in 1973, that the aftermath of this recession could wipe out those gains almost entirely.
Here’s where it all went:
Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez.
<snip>
Saez calculates that in 2007 the top .01 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000.
As of 2007, the top decile of American earners, Saez writes, pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages…
<snip>
“The top 1 percent incomes captured half of the overall economic growth over the period 1993-2007,” Saes writes.
<snip>
“…while the bottom 99 percent of incomes grew at a solid pace of 2.7 percent per year from 1993-2000, these incomes grew only 1.3 percent per year from 2002-2007. As a result, in the economic expansion of 2002-2007, the top 1 percent captured two thirds of income growth.”Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High: STUDY | HuffPost Impact
Deeg
September 22, 2009, 3:50pm
13
I have not read the book that Whack-a-Mole describes and perhaps it’s a bit silly for me to argue against an economist but I’m not sure how much I subscribe to the conclusion. I would think some of the difference between the Clinton and Bush years would be the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the economic hit from the 9/11 attack. I’m not a Bush apologist but I don’t think either of those could be attributed to Bush.
Perhaps not. But it was Bush’s decision (backed up by a compliant Congress) to cut taxes at the start of a war. How many national leaders of modern times have done that?!
XT
September 22, 2009, 5:00pm
15
Who do you think will win when we compare things between the Clinton years and the Obama years? How about Bush vs Obama? Be interesting to see how it pans out…
-XT
Considering the crap-tacular economy that Obama inherited, I’d be surprised if he didn’t end up looking pretty good by the end of 4 (8) years.
Algher
September 22, 2009, 5:31pm
17
I hate these bits of Presidential comparison that make no effort to analyze level of control / complacency / cooperation with those in control of the House and the Senate.
Yeah…right up there with drive-by posts that cast an assertion with nothing to back it up.
Bartels’ book has been well received as a scholarly effort with plenty of research and data to back up its conclusions. Some argue that despite his excellent work there still is not enough data to draw firm conclusions. Nevertheless the data, at the very least, provides some very compelling and strong evidence for the disparity between the economic outcomes of our two major political parties when they are in office.
Economists and political scientists have known for a long time that income growth rates are higher for every percentile under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents, and that income inequality increases under Republican presidents and decreases under Democratic presidents. This has always been treated as a curious statistical fluke, because the other factors affecting income growth (e.g., technological change, globalization) surely dwarf the effects of a president.
In Unequal Democracy, Bartels undertakes to prove that this is not merely a statistical fluke. Bartels argues that the dramatic increase in income inequality over the past 50 years is a direct result of the policies of Republican presidents, not impersonal (or inevitable) market forces.
After reading the book, I’m still not 100% persuaded, but not because Bartels’ case was weak—it wasn’t. To the contrary, it was a tour de force: cogent, methodical, data-driven, and statistically sophisticated. I just don’t think there’s enough data to arrive at a definitive answer. Specifically, I think monetary policy played a big role in income growth rates over the past 50 years; we simply don’t have enough data to tease out the effects of monetary policy on income growth.
However, Bartels’ argument was much more convincing than I expected.
<snip>
The book is an absolute treasure trove of interesting statistical findings like this, many of them based on original work. Not all the evidence in the book is favorable for the Democrats either—for example, Bartels finds that both Democratic and Republican senators are completely unresponsive to the preferences of low-income constituents. This makes Bartels’ argument all the more credible.
SOURCE: http://economicsofcontempt.blogspot.com/2008/07/thoughts-on-larry-bartels-unequal.html
Deeg
September 22, 2009, 6:12pm
19
But I don’t think that will hurt the economy for years and can’t have made much impact on any economic numbers used in the book.
I believe that the economy and political workings are too complex to blame one administration for any measurable highs and lows.
Algher
September 22, 2009, 6:15pm
20
Whack-a-Mole:
Yeah…right up there with drive-by posts that cast an assertion with nothing to back it up.
Bartels’ book has been well received as a scholarly effort with plenty of research and data to back up its conclusions. Some argue that despite his excellent work there still is not enough data to draw firm conclusions. Nevertheless the data, at the very least, provides some very compelling and strong evidence for the disparity between the economic outcomes of our two major political parties when they are in office.
You just backed me up. Bartel (per your post) looks at who is President, without taking into account who holds control of the House and the Senate.
I don’t doubt that he has great data - but I will say again that only looking at who controls the Presidency is missing too much of the equation in our Republic.
