How to Lie with Statistics: "The Blue-Collar Labor Boom Reduces Inequality"

[mahatmakanejeeves]

ECONOMY & JOBS

The Blue-Collar Labor Boom Reduces Inequality
January 15, 2020 4 minute read

Council of Economic Advisers

Since President Trump’s election, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has hit 127 record closings—more than any other president’s first three years since 1952. But wealth gains under the Trump Administration extend far beyond the stock market, and—in contrast to past periods of economic expansion—recent growth is not only concentrated among the wealthiest Americans.

Real total household and nonprofit net wealth increased 12.1 percent—over $12 trillion—over the first 11 quarters of the Trump Administration. This is more than any other president’s first 11 quarters since this data series began. Since President Trump’s election, the working class has seen the largest growth: Net worth held by the bottom 50 percent of households has increased by 47 percent, more than three times the rate of increase for the top 1 percent of households.

These recent gains are a sharp departure from the past. Under the Trump Administration, net worth for the bottom 50 percent of households has increased at an annual rate 15 times higher than the average growth seen under the three prior administrations’ expansion periods, as shown in the figure on the left below.

More recently, wealth inequality has declined following the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), as the share of net worth held by the bottom 50 percent of households has increased while the share held by the top 1 percent of households has decreased, as shown in the figure on the right below.



Beyond wealth, income measures also show lower-income Americans realizing the strongest gains. Under President Trump, real take home pay for the typical middle class family has increased by roughly $5,000. And, at more than $66,000, real median household income is now at the highest level ever recorded.

{snip}

The $5,000 figure is just a flat out lie. I'll link to one of the many rebuttals of that.

Now, why do you suppose that the bar on the left is for the averaged results of the last three administrations? Wouldn't it be more, oh, honest?, to show each administration's results individually? You'd see the results for Clinton, Bush, and Obama individually. I'll bet that would show something that Trump does not want you to see.

{edited to add}

Trump pushes some extremely dubious numbers about median household income during his term. See a fact-check here: https://www.factcheck.org/2019/11/trumps-shaky-5000-boast/ …

Link to tweet

[NoMoreRepugs]

1. I call Bullshit on the "flip" in net wealth accumulation

statistics under the RUMP administration.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. You should. I just added a link to the fact-check on those claims. NT

[Farmer-Rick]

3. We are a nation of sales clerks and fast food servers.

The majority of Americans who are employed, are sales clerks. The next largest group, and almost equals the number of sales clerks, is food servers.

How is that in anyway a blue-collar boom??????

The Council of Economic Advisors is just another propaganda tool for Traitor Trump. They lie and lie and lie

Capitalism, the filthy rich and Traitor Trump has turned America, a once powerful manufacturing powerhouse, into a nation of poorly paid menial clerks and servers.

Blue collar boom my a**.