PELOSI: "The fact that people have jobs always contributes to an increase in inflation and that’s a good thing." pic.twitter.com/bnBKm1O6Yf
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 13, 2022
Most Americans have come out ahead economically in the pandemic, despite inflation | Analysis https://t.co/3gC1ieulGZ
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 14, 2022
… Red-hot demand for labor means lower-income workers can command wage increases that outpace rising prices. So can middle-income workers who switch jobs.
Relief checks approved by lawmakers of both parties and sent out by Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden have given the majority of households a cushion. Those higher up the income scale have seen handsome increases in the values of their homes and investment assets.
Even those who fault Biden’s policies for exacerbating inflation risks acknowledge that, right now, the pandemic economy continues to offer large, underappreciated rewards.
“For most people,” concludes Michael Strain, who directs economic policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, “the current economic situation is good.”…
At realtimeinequality.org, economists at the University of California-Berkeley estimate that disposable income for Americans overall increased by 5.3% after inflation from December 2019 to December 2021. Using that measure, which includes the effects of both labor income and Covid relief payments, the bottom 50% of earners saw their disposable income rise by 10.9%, compared with 3.8% for the middle 40% and 4.4% for the top 10%.
Examining changes in wages alone, Arin Dube of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst estimates that two-thirds of American workers have seen their wages go up after accounting for inflation over the last two years. Over just the last year — when inflation accelerated substantially — roughly one-third of workers have come out ahead, Dube says.
Outsized gains at the bottom of the income scale chip away at inequality and create opportunity for younger workers who fill many lower-skill, lower-paying jobs. The labor market is running hot enough that millions of Americans keep quitting their jobs for higher-paying new ones in what White House economist Bharat Ramamurti calls “The Great Upgrade.”
More affluent older Americans have benefited from booming real estate and financial markets. Since February 2020, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen roughly 19%…
The Biden administration has worked for months to ease choke points in the supply chain for scarce goods such as automobiles. But the principal inflation-fighting power lies with the Fed, and Americans unhappy about inflation today may not like tomorrow’s higher borrowing costs much better.
“The people screaming for Biden to do something do not want the Fed to raise interest rates,” says Betsey Stevenson, a former Obama administration economist now at the University of Michigan. “They want more damn cars.”
Speaking of C.R.E.A.M.:
$200K in missing gold, $268M in missing bitcoin, files labeled w/“dirty” accounts and a package to a Ukraine hotel from darknet vendor of fake passports/bank credentials sealed detention of NY husband in $3.6 billion crypto heist. Along with his wife’s cat https://t.co/NTYqEsALY0
— Spencer Hsu (@hsu_spencer) February 15, 2022
Nicely written article, with photos. He’s got dual citizenship, a Russian passport, and the keys to their financial accounts; she’s got frozen embryos stored here and her frenetic social-media presence. So he’s in jail, she’s out on bail, and we can only await further installments from Razzlekhan, the self-proclaimed “Crocodile of Wall Street.”...
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Cash Rules Everything Around MePost + Comments (237)