It does not require a Masters degree here anyway to be an elementary school teacher. A job that consists of a 180 day work year 6 hours a day minus one mandatory free period and lunch equaling (here) 4 and 1/2 hours a day of actual teaching by contract. Much of that average pay for teachers is set by a flux of seniority. They are all on their way to the top step its just a matter of breathing long enough to get their.
Here in RI the starting wage is just under $40,000. The highest hourly wage is about $90 an hour and thats calculated by the union because the teachers are paid by the hour for anything outside of their contractual obligations.
Another aspect to the unsustainable pensions is the early retirements that allow some of these groups to retire and collect healthy pensions after 20-25 years so that more people are collecting than are paying into the retirement system. There are currently about 15,000 state workers here paying for 26,000 state retirees. A similar situation to social security except instead of the system being broke and changing the taxpayer will pick up the tab.
Until recently here state employees could retire and then go back to work on their second retirement with the state, double dipping. Raise your hand if you work in a private industry that allows full retirement after 20-22 years.
Outsourcing and the wholesale movement of jobs overseas and to Mexico has been happening in the private sector since the late 1950's culminating with NAFTA which completely emasculated manufacturing here. My next door neighbor has been out of work for a year now since the factory where he worked for 20 years moved to Mexico. They were a customer of mine also.
I'd love to know what the percentages are for government jobs shipped overseas for comparison to private sector losses. Miniscule in comparison I bet.
Taxes outpace the CPI almost every year. My local property taxes are going up 4.5% and the school system isn't happy with that they are suing for a larger increase. But wait the CPI was only 2.7% last year. They want a 6% increase in spending. My neighbor and I are just thrilled with their demands.
There is no movement towards protecting jobs here in this administration at all. Its not even on the agenda. Based on that why should the private sector taxpayer be motivated to keep government costs high by protecting ONLY those jobs?
I agree with yout ideas on the VAT as a way to tariff other countries but how would that fly with NAFTA? More to the point with an admin who ran in part on killing tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas but has already flaked out on that would you expect any real action on a VAT?
Private sector jobs are tax positive. They create wealth and the taxes they pay are from created wealth. Thats with the exception of defense contractors and government sub contractors. Public sector jobs are tax negative with every penny of the outlay coming from taxes. The more public sector jobs are created and the higher the cost the more taxes are required to pay for them. Public sector jobs create value in return for the cost outlay though and thats why they are created. However as with anything there is a tipping point on value. So when you are say redesigning your kitchen you may not use Italian marble for the countertops because it isn't in your budget.
Apparently it is beyond the realm of possibility that the cost of government here is not within our budget.
But check out the conditions he started with (double digit inflation and interest rates, double digit unemployment), check out how those ended up (and Volker was a big part, yes), check out his inflation adjusted economic growth, then compare that data to some other presidents. I think you will find that at a minimum those economic policies are worthy of some serious thought.
It's the start of "blame the workers", the start of the stealing from the poor and give to the rich, which are still experiencing the fruits of "deregulation" and one thing not covered much is the continual drug ads which have side effects as long as your arm and that can kill you (under the guise of patents and thus no focus on things that won't kill you because they are not patentable).
That said, how does one bust through to people to make them realize it plain does not work. I think the wikipedia is a good place to start.
Another thing to do might be revisit the 70's, Carter, what is stagflation and what really caused it all.
and on top of it, Chase went and changed loan terms of existing perfectly fine WaMu customers. I don't know how you are but maybe you would care to create an account and write up these details.
We've seen more than one "raw deal" and then an unbelievable "good deal" (say Goldman Sachs, 100% CDS payout plus acquiring underlying assets) that isn't across the board treatment by the numbers.
WaMu was no angel, but its loan portfolio was no demon. Where are all of the losses that prompted JP Morgan to take a $30 billion dollar negative goodwill when it "purchased" WaMu? Instead just 8 months later JP Morgan stated it could make up to $29 billion on the WaMu loans.
Why did the FDIC sell WaMu for a meer $1.9 billion when they sold IndyMac for $13.9 billion? IndyMac had only 1/10th the assets of WaMu. With that evaluation WaMu should have sold for $139 billion. It looks like JP Morgan got a very nice gift compliments of the FDIC at the expense of the unsecured creditors and equity holders.
Is that really fair?
Let me also remind you that many banks were engaging in the same practices as WaMu so are they any better? Or were they just not seized? Most of the industry and people around here are just pots calling the kettle black.
You'll pardon me if I have little sympathy for government aparatchiks, cops, teachers and the like given the typical stench permeating the work environment they populate. Its hard for me to appreciate the distinctly proletarian character of folks whose selection for these positions not infrequently entails the friendly intervention of the very bacteria that set policy for them. The only thing less meritorious than the cause of the local cop is an argument in favor of watching local TV news.
This is the best I could find after a week of looking - if you can recommend some more sources, that'd be great.
Here's what I can tell you about manufacturing:
The average U.S manufacturer's costs break down as such:
Raw materials 45.98%
Labor 21%
Advertizing and marketing 9%
R&D 8.5%
Interest 4.55%
Transportation 2.9%
Health and safety 1.5%
Energy 1.53%
Environmental protection 1.48%
Land and rent 1.46%
Utilities 1.16%
Software .8%
You might really go digging into union/labor costs vs. other costs on some of these jobs and esp. pension costs. There is a real problem with pensions assisting in funding Wall Street, additionally, getting hoodwinked by Wall Street due to needed returns. That said, most manufacturing, the real costs are in the plants, esp. in Silicon/tech/advanced manufacturing. There are other issues as well, but we have a real political problem going on where they continually will blame the workers for just about anything, the disposable worker syndrome and as you note, now they are blasting the last remaining work group which has managed to hang onto those benefits/wages which used to be pretty standard across the U.S. workforce.
The median pay for an elementary school teacher - which is a job that requires at least a Bachelor's and a Master's - is $49,000 a year. So your friend happens to be in the top 10% of teachers. Just as many teachers are making $33,000 a year as are making your friend's wages.
Moreover, I doubt that her health care is free - are you saying she pays no health insurance premiums, no co-pays, no deductibles?
and this is pathetic violation of Keynesian economics too (perhaps you forget this). We have U.S. taxpayer funds being used in all sorts of offshore outsourcing agreements. The most obvious is call center for food stamps and welfare.
So, instead of giving those people who need a job, one, we have people in India answering questions on food stamps.
There are many, many others, IBM for example gets a lot of Federal and State contracts. They fire the gov. workers, turn it into a contract, then offshore outsource it.
There are so many methods and ways to deal with the trade deficit and tariffs is just one. I've written about the tax code, the investment "funds" pouring U.S. dollars into EEs, instead of the U.S., the tax haven system and I've written enormous amounts on a VAT as well as a national trade strategy board. When a good bill is introduced in Congress on trade, I try to write that up as well to promote public support and get folks to write their Reps as to co-sponsor those bills. I'm making a point to write about China currency manipulation since that is where the potential political will in Congress is at the moment and also is a real problem!
Yet in comments I see this mantra answer, as if all of my efforts are not even read! That's frustrating! I've also written tons of posts on the offshore outsourcing of Federal and State jobs, which is U.S. taxpayer dollars being used to fund job creation in other nations.
You seem to be ignoring the pension plan time bomb. RI state employees have a built in 3% COLA every year and up until last year had free lifetime medical benefits which still applies to people who retired through last year. Then they retire elsewhere to avoid the high taxes here which is their right but you can see the irony I hope.
The private sector no longer has defined pension plans such as these for anything close to the average worker.
Its estimated that state and local employee pension plans nationwide are over $2 trillion under water.
These plans have to invest in riskier and riskier investment vehicles because they need higher rates of return to keep the contractual promises
hence someone can lay the blame on the financial sector which could not be blamed if the investments were put into lower yield safer vehicles.
Regarding GM their cost per employee was $75 an hour and much of that was due to the defined pension plan medical costs of their retirees. Ford is building cars in Mexico at a total labor and benefit cost of $10 an hour. Are any local or state or Federal jobs being shipped to Mexico? How much could Social Security save if their call centers were relocated to the Philippines? Thats how it works on this side of the fence.
Yes all of America should have these wages but the reality is without huge tariffs to allow for unionization of the rest of the work force the ability of the average private sector worker to pay higher and higher taxes to support faster than inflation spending is decreasing.
When the government starts shipping massive numbers of government jobs overseas that side of the fence may see whats been going on.
...to URDRWHO'a complaint about how good public employees have it. First let's recognize that there are many public employee entities in this country: City, county, state, police, fire, school districts, and others. As such, the salaries and benefits vary considerably, thus the danger of using one example as if it were representative. URDRWHO's friend's wife will be getting free medical for life. I agree this is unsustainable, but I disagree that it is typical, although I confess I do not have data on this nation-wide. To use a California counter-example, the state-wide teachers' retirement system, to which all school districts must subscribe, does not pay medical benefits, although individual school districts are free to provide them. Most school districts either do not, or the medical benefits stop at age 65. But the Los Angeles system provides life-long medical, leading to a false public perception that California teachers in general enjoy such largesse. Does anyone have nation-wide data on how common this is? I would love to see it.
Whose animated flash cartoons I've embedded many a time on this site, won a Pulitzer Prize. If you want to see some of them (beyond the economic ones I've pulled out for our Economic funnies), go to Mark Fiore. It seems some of the Tea Partiers are sending him death threats. I guess these people can't take a joke.
Over and over we've shown that's not the case. It's doing things like currency swaps, and debt hiding, the "free flow" of capital around the globe (as in out), LBOs and other selling a nation's public assets down the river that is the cause. Look at Iceland! That's not at all caused by wages, it's pure banking offering absurd rates and other nonsensical financial "investment" vehicles, which collapsed their economy.
So, instead of pickin' on public service workers, who are strongly unionized, you might be pointing out the real problem is corporations have been sucking off the money from the rest of the U.S. middle class and that's the real cause!
In other words, your pickin' on these guys when the reality is all of America should have similar wages and benefits and one can see, just by looking at any income distribution graph what's going on. The super rich, the executive class, now has that money and no, they are not paying that money back in taxes.
Stop watching Glenn Beck and start reading the graphs and stats on this site. Seriously, the problem is not the workers, who have managed to hold onto some benefits while everybody else is getting decimated. We showed that over and over on GM...look to GMAC as a real problem, it was not the unions, the total losses were not caused by the workers.
Well, you must be living in a world that is other than most in my State.
In my State government employees are in the upper tier of middle income earners, they have medical insurance that is (sorry to use this word) Cadillac type coverage and they are just about the only group that get defined benefit plans.
I would say that they are making a living wage while the non-government people are dying on the vine.
I have a friend of 50 years and his wife works for the city. She has 25 years in service and will get free health care for life. On top of that her defined benefit plan is very robust. As a tax paying business owner, my friend is a bit torn over it. He knows his taxes went to help pay for her great pay and benefits but......as he said, she isn't going to turn it down. :)
California defined pension plans are in the red to the tune of $500 billion. Where in the world are they going to find the money to pay those sugar coated promises.
Can I ask why a 2nd grade teacher of 10 years earns$75,000 a year, gets free health care for the family and is making equivalent to a physicians assistant salary? Or even equivalent to some GP's in hospital owned organizations.
In twenty years my school taxes have gone up over 700%. My income sure as heck has not gone up 700%. If I don't or can't pay those taxes.....I loose my home. I have no choice in the matter.
The dog is dying and you want more and more from the poor thing. Ask Greece how well it is going for them? They are in debt to what 125% of GDP or something like it.
China is just laughing and laughing at our adventurous social experiment.
A NBER committee member dissents and thinks it's ridiculous to not declare the recession over.
There are a few things really interesting in all of this.
Firstly Gordon claims a double dip, which is 2 quarters of negative GDP would be the start of a 2nd, new recession.
(really?) and most believe negative GDP of 2 quarters is highly unlikely...
but here's the deal, one needs about > 2% GDP growth every quarter just to maintain the status quo.
So, is low positive GDP really negative?
Then, NBER is talking a lot about GDI, or gross domestic income and it's low, Americans have not recovered their money here.
I think that's damn swell NBER is focusing in on income as well as unemployment, maybe somebody out there realizes it's a national economy, for the citizens. Not just a few short term profit statements or large businesses.
Anywho, I think the NBER is correct to not declare a recession end date. The data is too weak, too mixed and we have some indicators that are not behaving as they have in the past, most notably productivity, jobs, to GDP numbers.
It does not require a Masters degree here anyway to be an elementary school teacher. A job that consists of a 180 day work year 6 hours a day minus one mandatory free period and lunch equaling (here) 4 and 1/2 hours a day of actual teaching by contract. Much of that average pay for teachers is set by a flux of seniority. They are all on their way to the top step its just a matter of breathing long enough to get their.
Here in RI the starting wage is just under $40,000. The highest hourly wage is about $90 an hour and thats calculated by the union because the teachers are paid by the hour for anything outside of their contractual obligations.
Another aspect to the unsustainable pensions is the early retirements that allow some of these groups to retire and collect healthy pensions after 20-25 years so that more people are collecting than are paying into the retirement system. There are currently about 15,000 state workers here paying for 26,000 state retirees. A similar situation to social security except instead of the system being broke and changing the taxpayer will pick up the tab.
Until recently here state employees could retire and then go back to work on their second retirement with the state, double dipping. Raise your hand if you work in a private industry that allows full retirement after 20-22 years.
Outsourcing and the wholesale movement of jobs overseas and to Mexico has been happening in the private sector since the late 1950's culminating with NAFTA which completely emasculated manufacturing here. My next door neighbor has been out of work for a year now since the factory where he worked for 20 years moved to Mexico. They were a customer of mine also.
I'd love to know what the percentages are for government jobs shipped overseas for comparison to private sector losses. Miniscule in comparison I bet.
Taxes outpace the CPI almost every year. My local property taxes are going up 4.5% and the school system isn't happy with that they are suing for a larger increase. But wait the CPI was only 2.7% last year. They want a 6% increase in spending. My neighbor and I are just thrilled with their demands.
There is no movement towards protecting jobs here in this administration at all. Its not even on the agenda. Based on that why should the private sector taxpayer be motivated to keep government costs high by protecting ONLY those jobs?
I agree with yout ideas on the VAT as a way to tariff other countries but how would that fly with NAFTA? More to the point with an admin who ran in part on killing tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas but has already flaked out on that would you expect any real action on a VAT?
Private sector jobs are tax positive. They create wealth and the taxes they pay are from created wealth. Thats with the exception of defense contractors and government sub contractors. Public sector jobs are tax negative with every penny of the outlay coming from taxes. The more public sector jobs are created and the higher the cost the more taxes are required to pay for them. Public sector jobs create value in return for the cost outlay though and thats why they are created. However as with anything there is a tipping point on value. So when you are say redesigning your kitchen you may not use Italian marble for the countertops because it isn't in your budget.
Apparently it is beyond the realm of possibility that the cost of government here is not within our budget.
Sure, there were problems with Reagan.
But check out the conditions he started with (double digit inflation and interest rates, double digit unemployment), check out how those ended up (and Volker was a big part, yes), check out his inflation adjusted economic growth, then compare that data to some other presidents. I think you will find that at a minimum those economic policies are worthy of some serious thought.
It's the start of "blame the workers", the start of the stealing from the poor and give to the rich, which are still experiencing the fruits of "deregulation" and one thing not covered much is the continual drug ads which have side effects as long as your arm and that can kill you (under the guise of patents and thus no focus on things that won't kill you because they are not patentable).
That said, how does one bust through to people to make them realize it plain does not work. I think the wikipedia is a good place to start.
Another thing to do might be revisit the 70's, Carter, what is stagflation and what really caused it all.
and on top of it, Chase went and changed loan terms of existing perfectly fine WaMu customers. I don't know how you are but maybe you would care to create an account and write up these details.
We've seen more than one "raw deal" and then an unbelievable "good deal" (say Goldman Sachs, 100% CDS payout plus acquiring underlying assets) that isn't across the board treatment by the numbers.
WaMu was no angel, but its loan portfolio was no demon. Where are all of the losses that prompted JP Morgan to take a $30 billion dollar negative goodwill when it "purchased" WaMu? Instead just 8 months later JP Morgan stated it could make up to $29 billion on the WaMu loans.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602061&sid=aYhaiSOq_Tbc
Why did the FDIC sell WaMu for a meer $1.9 billion when they sold IndyMac for $13.9 billion? IndyMac had only 1/10th the assets of WaMu. With that evaluation WaMu should have sold for $139 billion. It looks like JP Morgan got a very nice gift compliments of the FDIC at the expense of the unsecured creditors and equity holders.
Is that really fair?
Let me also remind you that many banks were engaging in the same practices as WaMu so are they any better? Or were they just not seized? Most of the industry and people around here are just pots calling the kettle black.
You'll pardon me if I have little sympathy for government aparatchiks, cops, teachers and the like given the typical stench permeating the work environment they populate. Its hard for me to appreciate the distinctly proletarian character of folks whose selection for these positions not infrequently entails the friendly intervention of the very bacteria that set policy for them. The only thing less meritorious than the cause of the local cop is an argument in favor of watching local TV news.
This is the best I could find after a week of looking - if you can recommend some more sources, that'd be great.
Here's what I can tell you about manufacturing:
The average U.S manufacturer's costs break down as such:
Raw materials 45.98%
Labor 21%
Advertizing and marketing 9%
R&D 8.5%
Interest 4.55%
Transportation 2.9%
Health and safety 1.5%
Energy 1.53%
Environmental protection 1.48%
Land and rent 1.46%
Utilities 1.16%
Software .8%
You might really go digging into union/labor costs vs. other costs on some of these jobs and esp. pension costs. There is a real problem with pensions assisting in funding Wall Street, additionally, getting hoodwinked by Wall Street due to needed returns. That said, most manufacturing, the real costs are in the plants, esp. in Silicon/tech/advanced manufacturing. There are other issues as well, but we have a real political problem going on where they continually will blame the workers for just about anything, the disposable worker syndrome and as you note, now they are blasting the last remaining work group which has managed to hang onto those benefits/wages which used to be pretty standard across the U.S. workforce.
Disaggregate, disaggregate is always the way.
I can't find data specifically on public sector union workers, but I do know that 92% of union workers get health insurance, so it's a good bet.
LIfelong medical is probably much less common.
Arguably, it's the lack of wages.
The real problem here isn't that the fellow with the well-paid teacher friend is paying higher taxes - it's that their income isn't growing.
BTW: $75k a year is waaaay over the average for any state in the Union.
http://dcjobsource.com/teachersalaries.html
The median pay for an elementary school teacher - which is a job that requires at least a Bachelor's and a Master's - is $49,000 a year. So your friend happens to be in the top 10% of teachers. Just as many teachers are making $33,000 a year as are making your friend's wages.
Moreover, I doubt that her health care is free - are you saying she pays no health insurance premiums, no co-pays, no deductibles?
I appreciate it.
and this is pathetic violation of Keynesian economics too (perhaps you forget this). We have U.S. taxpayer funds being used in all sorts of offshore outsourcing agreements. The most obvious is call center for food stamps and welfare.
So, instead of giving those people who need a job, one, we have people in India answering questions on food stamps.
There are many, many others, IBM for example gets a lot of Federal and State contracts. They fire the gov. workers, turn it into a contract, then offshore outsource it.
There are so many methods and ways to deal with the trade deficit and tariffs is just one. I've written about the tax code, the investment "funds" pouring U.S. dollars into EEs, instead of the U.S., the tax haven system and I've written enormous amounts on a VAT as well as a national trade strategy board. When a good bill is introduced in Congress on trade, I try to write that up as well to promote public support and get folks to write their Reps as to co-sponsor those bills. I'm making a point to write about China currency manipulation since that is where the potential political will in Congress is at the moment and also is a real problem!
Yet in comments I see this mantra answer, as if all of my efforts are not even read! That's frustrating! I've also written tons of posts on the offshore outsourcing of Federal and State jobs, which is U.S. taxpayer dollars being used to fund job creation in other nations.
You seem to be ignoring the pension plan time bomb. RI state employees have a built in 3% COLA every year and up until last year had free lifetime medical benefits which still applies to people who retired through last year. Then they retire elsewhere to avoid the high taxes here which is their right but you can see the irony I hope.
The private sector no longer has defined pension plans such as these for anything close to the average worker.
Its estimated that state and local employee pension plans nationwide are over $2 trillion under water.
These plans have to invest in riskier and riskier investment vehicles because they need higher rates of return to keep the contractual promises
hence someone can lay the blame on the financial sector which could not be blamed if the investments were put into lower yield safer vehicles.
Regarding GM their cost per employee was $75 an hour and much of that was due to the defined pension plan medical costs of their retirees. Ford is building cars in Mexico at a total labor and benefit cost of $10 an hour. Are any local or state or Federal jobs being shipped to Mexico? How much could Social Security save if their call centers were relocated to the Philippines? Thats how it works on this side of the fence.
Yes all of America should have these wages but the reality is without huge tariffs to allow for unionization of the rest of the work force the ability of the average private sector worker to pay higher and higher taxes to support faster than inflation spending is decreasing.
When the government starts shipping massive numbers of government jobs overseas that side of the fence may see whats been going on.
...to URDRWHO'a complaint about how good public employees have it. First let's recognize that there are many public employee entities in this country: City, county, state, police, fire, school districts, and others. As such, the salaries and benefits vary considerably, thus the danger of using one example as if it were representative. URDRWHO's friend's wife will be getting free medical for life. I agree this is unsustainable, but I disagree that it is typical, although I confess I do not have data on this nation-wide. To use a California counter-example, the state-wide teachers' retirement system, to which all school districts must subscribe, does not pay medical benefits, although individual school districts are free to provide them. Most school districts either do not, or the medical benefits stop at age 65. But the Los Angeles system provides life-long medical, leading to a false public perception that California teachers in general enjoy such largesse. Does anyone have nation-wide data on how common this is? I would love to see it.
Whose animated flash cartoons I've embedded many a time on this site, won a Pulitzer Prize. If you want to see some of them (beyond the economic ones I've pulled out for our Economic funnies), go to Mark Fiore. It seems some of the Tea Partiers are sending him death threats. I guess these people can't take a joke.
Over and over we've shown that's not the case. It's doing things like currency swaps, and debt hiding, the "free flow" of capital around the globe (as in out), LBOs and other selling a nation's public assets down the river that is the cause. Look at Iceland! That's not at all caused by wages, it's pure banking offering absurd rates and other nonsensical financial "investment" vehicles, which collapsed their economy.
So, instead of pickin' on public service workers, who are strongly unionized, you might be pointing out the real problem is corporations have been sucking off the money from the rest of the U.S. middle class and that's the real cause!
In other words, your pickin' on these guys when the reality is all of America should have similar wages and benefits and one can see, just by looking at any income distribution graph what's going on. The super rich, the executive class, now has that money and no, they are not paying that money back in taxes.
Stop watching Glenn Beck and start reading the graphs and stats on this site. Seriously, the problem is not the workers, who have managed to hold onto some benefits while everybody else is getting decimated. We showed that over and over on GM...look to GMAC as a real problem, it was not the unions, the total losses were not caused by the workers.
Well, you must be living in a world that is other than most in my State.
In my State government employees are in the upper tier of middle income earners, they have medical insurance that is (sorry to use this word) Cadillac type coverage and they are just about the only group that get defined benefit plans.
I would say that they are making a living wage while the non-government people are dying on the vine.
I have a friend of 50 years and his wife works for the city. She has 25 years in service and will get free health care for life. On top of that her defined benefit plan is very robust. As a tax paying business owner, my friend is a bit torn over it. He knows his taxes went to help pay for her great pay and benefits but......as he said, she isn't going to turn it down. :)
California defined pension plans are in the red to the tune of $500 billion. Where in the world are they going to find the money to pay those sugar coated promises.
Can I ask why a 2nd grade teacher of 10 years earns$75,000 a year, gets free health care for the family and is making equivalent to a physicians assistant salary? Or even equivalent to some GP's in hospital owned organizations.
In twenty years my school taxes have gone up over 700%. My income sure as heck has not gone up 700%. If I don't or can't pay those taxes.....I loose my home. I have no choice in the matter.
The dog is dying and you want more and more from the poor thing. Ask Greece how well it is going for them? They are in debt to what 125% of GDP or something like it.
China is just laughing and laughing at our adventurous social experiment.
A NBER committee member dissents and thinks it's ridiculous to not declare the recession over.
There are a few things really interesting in all of this.
Firstly Gordon claims a double dip, which is 2 quarters of negative GDP would be the start of a 2nd, new recession.
(really?) and most believe negative GDP of 2 quarters is highly unlikely...
but here's the deal, one needs about > 2% GDP growth every quarter just to maintain the status quo.
So, is low positive GDP really negative?
Then, NBER is talking a lot about GDI, or gross domestic income and it's low, Americans have not recovered their money here.
I think that's damn swell NBER is focusing in on income as well as unemployment, maybe somebody out there realizes it's a national economy, for the citizens. Not just a few short term profit statements or large businesses.
Anywho, I think the NBER is correct to not declare a recession end date. The data is too weak, too mixed and we have some indicators that are not behaving as they have in the past, most notably productivity, jobs, to GDP numbers.
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