No such redistribution took place.
Regards,
Shodan
And we have always been at war with Eastasia, right? 
Exactly. If one’s world view is based on fiction, then such a redistribution has indeed taken place. If one’s world view is based on reality, then no such redistribution has taken place. Couldn’t have said it better myself!
-XT
Two seconds on Google. Sheesh.
Sorry, just to be clear, who is it that “bags on” the capitalist system here, and what economic system do they favor instead?
You’re not seriously suggesting that liberals, or the SDMB posters you describe as “you guys” are in any way opposed to capitalism? I would fear that you are buying into your own hype, if that were actually the case.
Yes it did.
Regards,
Someone who can read
Once again, here are some actual FACTS.
Number of jobs in America in 2000: 101,210
Number of jobs in America in 2008: 106,648
Total jobs created before the recession: 5,438,000
Cite.
Pay also increased. In constant dollars, wages went up about .7% per year between 2000 and 2008. But total compensation went up more.
Here are the Bureau of Labor Statistics tables for total compensation paid by labor category each year: BLS data.
In terms of total compensation, hourly wages increased from an average of $26.23 per hour in 2000 to $29.39 per hour in 2008, in constant 2009 dollars. Remember, that’s in constant dollars, so that represents an absolute increase in the standard of living. In addition, most wage earners got tax cuts and credits in the 2000’s, so their take-home pay was even higher.
So much for “no jobs, and stagnant wages in the 2000’s”. None of it is true. However, partisans on both sides can spin whatever story they like, simply by including the relevant measure. So I recommend reading the actual raw data at the BLS.
I notice that Democrats always like to talk about wages instead of total compensation, but this is completely bogus. Arbitrary changes in the mix of benefits vs wages can make wages look higher or lower than they were, with the actual cost of the employer not changing at all. Government edict such as raising the contribution rate for Social Security can have a major effect that is completely missed if you only look at wages. For example, if Obama manages to lift the cap on SS like he wants to, the cost to employers will increase, and wages will decrease accordingly, although the total compensation looks the same. But if the new tax drives down wages, Im sure liberals will use that as proof`that the middle class is being destroyed or some such rot.
Not true. An average of 15 million jobs per decade were created between 1950 and 2000. But there is considerable variation between decades. For example, the ten years following WWII (1945-1955) saw about 9 million jobs created. Other 8 year periods can be found with similar results to the years 2000-2008.
You also have to remember that the decade started with a recession, and ended with a recession. So that particular span is going to be skewed. If you look at the non-recession years, the job creation numbers track closer to the historical average. For example, the In 2005 there were 103,560 jobs, and by 2008 there were 106,648, a job creation rate of about a million per year.
In addition, absolute levels of job creation are partly determined by the size of the increase in workforce. For example, the decade between 1970 and 1980 created about 20 million jobs (one of the few decades where tens of millionsis accurate), but the work force increased by 30 million. So despite high job creation, the unemployment rate actually went up from 4.9% to 7.1% over that decade.
The period between 1950 and 2000 saw massive numbers of women enter the work force, and also was a period of high immigration. You cannot expect job creation rates in that period to be sustainable.
If you have near-full employment, and your workforce isnt growing, you arent going to create jobs. Unemployment was low in the 2000s. I dont know how much the work force increased, since the data only goes to 2002, but in the three years from 2000 to 2002, the available work force only increase by 5 million people. If that rate held through the decade, thats a rate of increase of about half of the increase in the 1970s. Since unemployment was already low, you would expect a job creation rate significantly lower than what was sustainable in the 1970`s.
I would also argue that job creation is a lousy metric. The important metric is whether everyone who wants a job can get a job. If the population were to stabilize or decline, or the population were to age and more people leave the work force than enter it, then you would expect job creation to drop to zero or even go negative, even though you have full employment. And it wouldn`t be a bad thing.
Some facts to address the above posts :
BLS reported that the total number of Americans employed in June [2009] on nonfarm payrolls came to 131.7 million workers on a seasonally adjusted basis. That’s below the June 2000 figure of 131.8 million with which we started the decade.
** Source: FRED. **
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/08/07/business/20090808_CHARTS_GRAPHIC.html
The share of national income made by the top 1% of earners has more than doubled since 1980.
I said from 2000 to 2010, not the dates you cherry picked. You can’t count job growth caused by the biggest asset bubble in history. Remove the jobs created by that and you’re at a loss.
The median wage has been stagnant from 2000 to 2010. Actually dropped a little I think. Any increase in “compensation” is just increased healthcare costs. Go look at what happened to personal borrowing from 2000 to 2008 and tell me Americans were earning more. More on income :
When Bill Clinton left office after 2000, the median income-the income line around which half of households come in above, and half fall below-stood at $52,500 (measured in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars). When Bush left office after 2008, the median income had fallen to $50,303. That’s a decline of 4.2 per cent.
That leaves Bush with the dubious distinction of becoming the only president in recent history to preside over an income decline through two presidential terms, notes Lawrence Mishel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The median household income increased during the two terms of Clinton (by 14 per cent, as we’ll see in more detail below), Ronald Reagan (8.1 per cent), and Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (3.9 per cent). As Mishel notes, although the global recession decidedly deepened the hole-the percentage decline in the median income from 2007 to 2008 is the largest single year fall on record-average families were already worse off in 2007 than they were in 2000, a remarkable result through an entire business expansion. “What is phenomenal about the years under Bush is that through the entire business cycle from 2000 through 2007, even before this recession…working families were worse off at the end of the recovery, in the best of times during that period, than they were in 2000 before he took office,” Mishel says.
Even more :
A generation ago, the one-income family committed about 54 percent of its pay to the basics—housing, health insurance, transportation, and taxes. That is, the one-income family spent about half its income to make the “nut”—the basic expenses that must be paid even if someone gets sick or loses a job. Today, these basic expenses, including child care so that both parents can work, consume 75 percent of the family’s combined income. With 75 percent of income earmarked for fixed expenses, today’s family has no margin for error.
http://bostonreview.net/BR30.5/warrentyagi.php
Even more :
n 1961 most families lived on one income, maybe supplemented by some part-time work by the wife for what was quaintly known back then as “pin money.” Now two-income households are the norm.
The overall wealth of America grew and grew during this era. GDP, adjusted for inflation and increased population, was up 227 percent. But wages and fringe benefits did not grow with the economy. For most workers, they fell. Wages peaked way back in 1972-1973, were on a mostly flat trajectory for more than two decades, rose briefly in the late 1990s, and then fell sharply in the new century. Airline pilots have seen their 1990s income cut by more than half; some union factory workers have seen their pay slashed by two-thirds. Millions are out of work, and the jobs they once held are gone and are not coming back. And even if the Great Recession is coming to an end, we face years of jobs growing more slowly than the working-age population, which could radically transform America’s culture, work ethic, and sense of progress.
In 2006 families worked on average about 900 more hours than families did in the 1960s and early 1970s. That is a roughly 45 percent increase in hours worked accompanied by a 41 percent increase in total income.
For many, the reality is that two jobs produce the same or a smaller after-tax income than just one job did three and four decades ago.
http://www.tax.com/taxcom/features.nsf/Articles/313FDACA4356CFEE8525769C0079A989?OpenDocument
But if you ignore all the jobs that were lost, there was net job creation!
So, what you are saying is that after the dot com bubble burst (following a period of one of the greatest economic upturns in this nations history), but before the recession really got started wages were higher than after the housing bubble burst and at the worst part of the current recession…right? And, well, you don’t see the cherry pickage inherent in your assertion?
-XT
Median income declined right the way through the 2000s economic expansion. That’s the first time in history that that ever happened. Try reading the stuff I posted, even the bits in my post.
Uhuh…and as I said, this was after the 1990’s economic expansion had inflated the median income and then through 2 recessions, 9/11 and the virtual collapse of the banking system. So, it’s not really all that surprising a figure, regardless of how you are trying to spin it. Cherry picked, as you and I and everyone else here knows perfectly well, ehe?
Here is another way to look at it…note the adjusted table.
And note that this cuts off in 2007…and that this data can be spun in myriad ways too (much depends on demographics, race, job type, state, etc). And, of course, health care and other benefits factor in as part of income, as Sam noted, though as denied by you…as if medical benefits are free and a persons right and a companies obligation (and, as if, even if we had UHC, people wouldn’t be paying for in increased taxes regardless). It all depends on which window of time one looks at, and how one spins the numbers as to whether or not wages were ‘stagnant’ from 2000 through 2008 (or any other period)…and what assumptions one makes, and how one defines income, especially related to benefits.
The bottom line is the whole thing is nonsense, since there is no real earthy reason that wages or median household income HAS to continue to go up and up every year or even every decade. Why people (especially American’s) think it’s their gods given right that their wages have to continually rise, or how this kind of ponzi scheme can or will just continue blithely on is beyond me.
-XT
There’s no reason that wages have to go up, but when productivity goes up and wages don’t then the wealth that’s being generated (thanks in part to those productive workers) is accumulated only by those at the top of the economic ladder.
The median wage declined during the 2000s economic expansion, the first time in history that ever happened. What part of that don’t you understand?
What’s the point in economic growth if the people growing the economy don’t get any benefit out of it? Productivity increases all the time, people shouldn’t be adequately compensated for producing more? Or should all the benefits of economic growth just accrue to top earners? That hasn’t worked out so well for the US economy recently.
WHY has productivity gone up though? Is it through the actions and abilities of the workers themselves? Have they gotten better, smarter, more efficient? More educated? More skilled? Just because people have gotten more productive does not equate across the board that wages have to go up on a 1 for 1 basis.
-XT
Probably the part where you didn’t read the table I linked too, which shows that, in fact, they didn’t decline, merely slowed. Perhaps if you click on the link…?
Why do the people HAVE to benefit from economic growth necessarily (aside from the increase in taxes they receive from said growth)? Productivity has gone up, but mainly this isn’t due to the workers, but due to the various businesses who have spent the capital on automation and other things that have increased individual workers productivity.
-XT
Suppose WidgetCo invests in a new tool that helps their widget makers make more widgets. The company becomes more productive. The company (and its investors) will expect to be paid back for that investment, and to enjoy the profits of that new productivity. I don’t begrudge them a return on their investment, and I don’t hear anyone else doing so either. But what about the workers? They have to learn to use that tool. They have a skill that the previous generation of widget makers did not, and that skill lets them be more productive.
So, to answer your question, yes; they are more efficient, more educated, more skilled. The skill they’re being paid for is “the ability to produce widgets.” If more widgets are being produced, then they must be more skilled, pretty much by definition.