Median income by state: changes under Bush

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by LordShiva


I think that almost everyone gets to choose where s/he wants to work. Unless they live under Communism.

You must live in an ivory tower.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by LordShiva


I think that almost everyone gets to choose where s/he wants to work. Unless they live under Communism.

[RGBVideo]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Either that, or DanS has been posting net numbers.

no

also, Dan never posts job loss months. So the "good times roll" threads are self-congratulatory spam threads directed at clueless, born-rich kids who have no idea what the real world means. Like you

[Shi Huangdi]

Second, compensation is being measured the wrong way. We need to remove the effects of inflation in order to compare compensation over time. This is done using the Consumer Price Index, which measures the prices faced by an urban, wage-earning family of four. However, as the Boskin Commission showed, the CPI overstates prices by about one percent per year. This is because the CPI does not properly reflect the improved quality of products (safer, last longer, easier to maintain), does not properly reflect the fact that people now buy more products at lower-priced retailers (Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon.com), and a number of other reasons. If prices are overstated by one percent per year, that means that labor compensation is understated by the same amount.

The Boskin Commission was back in the Mid-90's. They have sinced added in hedonic adjustments as well as adjustments for substitutions. The problems the Boskin Commission presented have since been adressed.

The Boskin Commission back in the Mid-90's said that inflation was being understated by one percent. Now, maybe you are of the opinion that the reforms to the CPI didn't go far enough, but on what basis are you saying that they had no effect?

[Adam Smith]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Why would it exclude government enterprises such as the post office? Clearly that involves both labor and capital.

Because good capital stock data are often not available for government enterprises. For example, I am currently working with people at the Department of Commerce to develop estimates of transit capital stock (busses, subways, track, etc.).

Originally posted by pchang
Based upon his analysis, wage growth has closely matched the true labor productivity growth. Who should benefit from the capital productivity growth? Corporate profits?

A quick answer is that labor productivity shows up in wages. Capital productivity shows up in profits (stocks), interest (bonds), rents (housing), and proprietary income (e.g., small business partnerships).

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
The Boskin Commission back in the Mid-90's said that inflation was being understated by one percent. Now, maybe you are of the opinion that the reforms to the CPI didn't go far enough, but on what basis are you saying that they had no effect?

The Boskin Commission Report: A Retrospective One Decade Later
Robert J. Gordon
NBER Working Paper No. 12311
Issued in June 2006

Current upward bias in the CPI is estimated to have declined from the revised 1.2-1.3 percent in the Boskin era to about 0.8 percent today. Yet the Boskin report, like most contemporary studies of quality change, failed to place sufficient value on the value of new products and on increased longevity. Allowing for these, today's bias is at least 1.0 percent per year or perhaps even higher.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w12311

edit:

Originally posted by Kidicious
All productivity is attributed to labor. When labor uses better tools the're productivity increases.

You could just as easily attribute all productivity to capital, which would be double counting. You need to look at the effects of each variable individually.

[DanS]

Originally posted by VJ
no

The payroll numbers that I post are net figures. We haven't had a month of net job losses since August, 2003.

[pchang]

Let's see

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Given that both are relatively negative job growth numbers given the increase in population, I can't see why you like one and not the other.

Current US population - just shy of 300 million
US Census says US population grew 13% from 1990 - 2000 = about 1.2% / year or about 0.1% per month

this is about 300,000 per month total population. How many are of working age and want jobs? 50%? If so, then we need to create 150,000 jobs per month to keep up.

BTW - BLS data says total employment in US was 144.6 million in August 2006. Therefore, the real percentage to keep up above is about 48.2% -> 144,600 jobs per month to keep up.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
You could just as easily attribute all productivity to capital, which would be double counting. You need to look at the effects of each variable individually.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't look at the effects of each variable. I'm saying that workers should benefit from the effects of both factors, and I don't know why they wouldn't under a system that was perfectly competitive. Why would only owners of property benefit? Shouldn't they pay higher wages and produce more goods and services. If workers are not benefiting from gains in capital productivity, it's because the system is operating inefficiently.