Re: US consumption
On Mar 6, 2007, at 10:12 AM, James Heartfield wrote:
I don’t ignore the figures Doug gave. He showed that median
household income rose by 15 per cent between 1973 and 2005.He also showed that hourly wages fell by 11 per cent. But given
that those dollars (as my table shows) bought more goods, hourly wages
measured in consumer goods as opposed to dollars have not fallen.
James, what do you think “real” means in this context? It means
corrected for price increases. So if real wages are down, they by
definition don’t buy more goods and services per hour of work -
unless your omission of “and services” was deliberate, because
services inflation is running at twice the rate of goods inflation
(and services are about 60% of spending).
Household income rose in the face of declining hourly wages because
more people have to work longer hours. Is that progress?
Doug