It Is Time

November 5th, 2018 by Tom Lynch

This is not a piece about insurance or health care. It won’t make the cut for Health Wonk Review and it will probably cost us readers (Well, 15 years has been a pretty good run). What this piece is is one that addresses the health of our nation.

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a chart showing gains in productivity and hourly wages from Q3 2017 to Q3 2018. It looks remarkably similar to the chart BLS released at the end of Q2. Impressive Productivity and Output gains in both quarters. And, if you didn’t know better, you’d think Hourly Compensation is rising pretty well, too.

However, look to the far right of both charts to see the change in Real Hourly Wages, which are wages after inflation is factored in. The Trump administration and most of the press have trumpeted (pun intended) the nominal wage increase of 2.8% for Nonfarm Business and 2.2% for Manufacturing in Q3, 3.2% and 2.5%, respectively, in Q2, without saying a thing about the negligible, and in some cases decreasing, Real Wages.

Real Wages for Nonfarm Business during this one-year period (Q3 to Q3) are up a measly 0.1%, after rising an anemic 0.5% in Q2; Manufacturing Real Wages in Q3 are actually down 0.4% after being down 0.2% in Q2. And this is not a new phenomenon. In the 40 years since 1979, Real Wages for hourly and non-supervisory workers have increased by a total of only 4.5%. During that same period, the CPI has risen 247.7%.

These are not “alternative facts.”

Since the day Donald Trump and his cronies got the keys to the kingdom, Real Wages per week have risen from $349 to $351 in constant 1982-1984 dollars. Two bucks! For the mathematically inclined among you, that’s an increase of 0.005%. During the same period, the Dow Jones average has grown 20.9%, and that counts the recent decline. I like the stock market as well as the next guy, but barely one-third of families in the bottom 50% of earners own stocks, according to the Federal Reserve. The fact is, lower-income Americans don’t have extra money to put into stocks, and a third of workers don’t have access to a 401(k) or another retirement plan, according to Pew.

The facts make clear that since Republicans took control of everything, the economic gains  have gone to the top earners. Folks in the middle and lower end have, to a large degree, been left by the wayside. Inequality reigns supreme. It is beyond baffling that these people who continue to get the smelly end of the stick resolutely remain, seemingly unperturbed, in the center of Mr. Trump’s base. Look at the enthused, smiling faces at his rallies. Sociologists have written about this, but I have yet to see anything that explains it fully.

Regardless, tomorrow is Election Day. Many of us have already voted. Many more will exercise the option tomorrow. Predictions call for a large turnout, large being defined, God help us, as perhaps a little more than half. I’m now in my eighth decade, and I cannot recall a more consequential election.

Many Americans (as well as some of my friends) are highly satisfied with the tax law changes, the rise in the stock market and the new makeup of the Supreme Court. In exchange for those they allow, without condemnation, the bullying behavior, the constant hyperbole, the ad hominem attacks and the non-stop lying.

It is time for the better angels of our nature to rise to the challenge. It is time to demand decency, and it is time to reject the abject vulgarity that oozes from the awesome edifice where John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln once lived and guided the nation. It is time to raise up America to its true potential. It is time for America to become once again the world’s beacon of hope. Maybe tomorrow America will say, “It is time.” To quote John Milton, “Hope springs eternal.”

Perhaps it is fitting to end this non-insurance piece with the words John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail at the end of his first day residing in the yet-to-be-completed new White House in 1800. Franklin Roosevelt had the words engraved onto the mantel of the White House State Dining Room in 1945. Adams wrote, “May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.” I wonder if the current occupant has ever seen those words.

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