Robert Samuelson used his column today to tout a Pew study that recycled well-known Census data showing stagnating family incomes over the last four decades. Unfortunately, Samuelson thought the results showed the opposite, telling readers:
“But the study convincingly rebuts the notion that the living standards of most Americans had stagnated for many decades. Pew calculated household incomes, adjusted for inflation, all along the economic spectrum and found that, until the early 2000s, most households reaped slow but steady increases. Growing inequality did not siphon off all gains for those who are not rich . Here’s how Pew describes this period:
“‘Households typically experienced double-digit gains in each of the three decades from 1970 to 2000. Middle-income household income increased by 13% in the 1970s, 11% in the 1980s, and 12% in the 1990s. Lower-income households had gains of 13% in the 1970s, 8% in the 1980s and 15% in the 1990s.'”
Rather than representing impressive gains in living standards, these are very modest gains compared with both prior decades and the economy’s rate of productivity growth. In the late forties, fifties, and sixties, family incomes were rising at an annual rate of more than 2 percent, which would translate into gains of more than 20 percent over the course of a decade. For example, the cutoff for the top third quintile of income rose by almost 16 percent in just the six years from 1967 to 1973. (The cutoffs for the second and first quintiles rose by 11.1 percent and 12.6 percent, respectively.)
Furthermore, most of the rise in incomes enjoyed by households in the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s was due to women entering the labor force. While it is a good thing that women enjoyed increased opportunities in these decades, we would not ordinarily think of it as a rise in the standard of living because two earners have more income than a single earner. Since we know that the wages of most workers were nearly stagnant over this period, the only way that most households were able to acheive gains in income was by putting in more hours.
Robert Samuelson used his column today to tout a Pew study that recycled well-known Census data showing stagnating family incomes over the last four decades. Unfortunately, Samuelson thought the results showed the opposite, telling readers:
“But the study convincingly rebuts the notion that the living standards of most Americans had stagnated for many decades. Pew calculated household incomes, adjusted for inflation, all along the economic spectrum and found that, until the early 2000s, most households reaped slow but steady increases. Growing inequality did not siphon off all gains for those who are not rich . Here’s how Pew describes this period:
“‘Households typically experienced double-digit gains in each of the three decades from 1970 to 2000. Middle-income household income increased by 13% in the 1970s, 11% in the 1980s, and 12% in the 1990s. Lower-income households had gains of 13% in the 1970s, 8% in the 1980s and 15% in the 1990s.'”
Rather than representing impressive gains in living standards, these are very modest gains compared with both prior decades and the economy’s rate of productivity growth. In the late forties, fifties, and sixties, family incomes were rising at an annual rate of more than 2 percent, which would translate into gains of more than 20 percent over the course of a decade. For example, the cutoff for the top third quintile of income rose by almost 16 percent in just the six years from 1967 to 1973. (The cutoffs for the second and first quintiles rose by 11.1 percent and 12.6 percent, respectively.)
Furthermore, most of the rise in incomes enjoyed by households in the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s was due to women entering the labor force. While it is a good thing that women enjoyed increased opportunities in these decades, we would not ordinarily think of it as a rise in the standard of living because two earners have more income than a single earner. Since we know that the wages of most workers were nearly stagnant over this period, the only way that most households were able to acheive gains in income was by putting in more hours.
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Rewrites of history can pop up in the strangest places. This one appears in an obituary for Edward Hugh, an economist who became somewhat famous for his pessimistic blogposts about the prospects for the euro zone. Towards the end, the piece tells readers:
“On occasion his prognostications were overly pessimistic, and Spain’s surprisingly quick economic recovery was an event that he, along with many others, did not foresee.”
This one should have left readers scratching their heads. Spain did not have a surprisingly quick recovery. In fact it’s recovery was much weaker and slower than almost anyone expected. In 2010, the I.M.F. projected that by 2015 Spain’s GDP would be 4.7 percent above its 2008 pre-recession level. It’s most recent projections show 2015 GDP coming in 3.1 percent below the 2008 level. If Hugh was wrong about the pace of Spain’s recovery, he was most likely overly optimistic, since very few people expected an economic performance that would be this weak.
Rewrites of history can pop up in the strangest places. This one appears in an obituary for Edward Hugh, an economist who became somewhat famous for his pessimistic blogposts about the prospects for the euro zone. Towards the end, the piece tells readers:
“On occasion his prognostications were overly pessimistic, and Spain’s surprisingly quick economic recovery was an event that he, along with many others, did not foresee.”
This one should have left readers scratching their heads. Spain did not have a surprisingly quick recovery. In fact it’s recovery was much weaker and slower than almost anyone expected. In 2010, the I.M.F. projected that by 2015 Spain’s GDP would be 4.7 percent above its 2008 pre-recession level. It’s most recent projections show 2015 GDP coming in 3.1 percent below the 2008 level. If Hugh was wrong about the pace of Spain’s recovery, he was most likely overly optimistic, since very few people expected an economic performance that would be this weak.
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Noam Scheiber had a good discussion yesterday in the NYT on recent changes in tax shares. The piece commits one major sin when it discusses the desire to lower the tax rate on capital income as stemming from a desire to reduce “double taxation.” The logic of this argument is that profits are taxed at the corporate level, so when they are taxed again at the individual level when they are paid out as dividends or lead to capital gains, this amounts to “double taxation.”
The problem with this logic is that the government gives individuals something of enormous value when it allows them to create a corporation as a legal entity. A corporation enjoys a wide range of privileges that these people would not have as individuals, most importantly that it allows them limited liability. This means that the individuals who own shares in the corporation are not liable for any harm the corporation may do beyond the value of their shares.
We know that limited liability and other benefits of corporate status have great value because people choose to incorporate. They would not do so, and save themselves from having to pay the corporate income tax, if they didn’t think the value of corporate status exceeded the burden of the tax. In this sense, the corporate income tax is a 100 percent voluntary tax, people opt to pay it in order to get the benefits of limited liability.
There is one other point that would have been useful to include in this discussion. Taxes affect the before-tax distribution of income insofar as they allow for a lucrative tax avoidance industry. To a large extent the private equity industry, which has created rich people like Mitt Romney and Peter Peterson, is about devising ways to raise corporate profits through tax avoidance. This is an important cost associated with having an excessively complex tax code. That is an important point that is always necessary to keep in mind in any discussion of the tax code.
Noam Scheiber had a good discussion yesterday in the NYT on recent changes in tax shares. The piece commits one major sin when it discusses the desire to lower the tax rate on capital income as stemming from a desire to reduce “double taxation.” The logic of this argument is that profits are taxed at the corporate level, so when they are taxed again at the individual level when they are paid out as dividends or lead to capital gains, this amounts to “double taxation.”
The problem with this logic is that the government gives individuals something of enormous value when it allows them to create a corporation as a legal entity. A corporation enjoys a wide range of privileges that these people would not have as individuals, most importantly that it allows them limited liability. This means that the individuals who own shares in the corporation are not liable for any harm the corporation may do beyond the value of their shares.
We know that limited liability and other benefits of corporate status have great value because people choose to incorporate. They would not do so, and save themselves from having to pay the corporate income tax, if they didn’t think the value of corporate status exceeded the burden of the tax. In this sense, the corporate income tax is a 100 percent voluntary tax, people opt to pay it in order to get the benefits of limited liability.
There is one other point that would have been useful to include in this discussion. Taxes affect the before-tax distribution of income insofar as they allow for a lucrative tax avoidance industry. To a large extent the private equity industry, which has created rich people like Mitt Romney and Peter Peterson, is about devising ways to raise corporate profits through tax avoidance. This is an important cost associated with having an excessively complex tax code. That is an important point that is always necessary to keep in mind in any discussion of the tax code.
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The Washington Post opinion pages is not a place most people go for original thought, even if they do provide much material for Beat the Press. One major exception to the uniformity and unoriginality that have marked the section for decades was Harold Meyerson’s column. Meyerson has been writing a weekly column for the Post for the last thirteen years. He was told by opinion page editor Fred Hiatt that his contract would not be renewed for 2016.
According to Meyerson, Hiatt gave as his reasons that his columns had bad social media metrics and that he focused too much on issues like worker power. The first part of this story is difficult to believe. Do other WaPo columnists, like BTP regulars Robert Samuelson and Charles Lane, really have such great social media metrics?
As far as part II, yes Meyerson was a different voice. His columns showed a concern for the ordinary workers who make up the overwhelming majority of the country’s population. Apparently, this is a liability at the Post.
The Washington Post opinion pages is not a place most people go for original thought, even if they do provide much material for Beat the Press. One major exception to the uniformity and unoriginality that have marked the section for decades was Harold Meyerson’s column. Meyerson has been writing a weekly column for the Post for the last thirteen years. He was told by opinion page editor Fred Hiatt that his contract would not be renewed for 2016.
According to Meyerson, Hiatt gave as his reasons that his columns had bad social media metrics and that he focused too much on issues like worker power. The first part of this story is difficult to believe. Do other WaPo columnists, like BTP regulars Robert Samuelson and Charles Lane, really have such great social media metrics?
As far as part II, yes Meyerson was a different voice. His columns showed a concern for the ordinary workers who make up the overwhelming majority of the country’s population. Apparently, this is a liability at the Post.
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The Washington Post gained notoriety in the last decade by relying on David Lereah as its main source the housing market. Lereah was the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors and author of Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust and How You Can Profit from It. It continues to follow the pattern of relying on a narrow group of economists, most of whom seem to specialize in repeating what the others are saying.
It devoted a major news article to explaining why “$2 gasoline isn’t having the economic impact everyone thought it would.” According to the piece, the main problem is that people have increased their savings:
“Kathy A. Jones, Schwab’s chief strategist on credit markets, said that consumers have increased their savings as oil prices have dropped. And as the savings rate has gradually edged higher, Jones said, the use of credit cards has declined. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the personal savings rate climbed to 5.6 and 5.5 percent respectively in October and November, the highest rates in three years.”
Actually, the saving rate is poorly measured since it depends on a measure of income that is subject to large revisions. If we take spending as a share of GDP, we find that it was 68.33 percent in the first three quarters of 2015, down trivially from its 68.4 percent measure in 2014 and almost identical to the 68.37 percent share in 2013. In other words, the data (as opposed to the economists) say people are spending pretty much what we should expect them to spend. If we want to find the sources of weak growth, we should look elsewhere.
While the piece correctly identifies equipment investment as one of the other sources of weakness, remarkably it ignores the trade deficit. Measured in 2009 dollars, the trade deficit rose from $442.5 billion in 2014 to $546.1 billion in the first three quarters of 2015. Assuming a multiplier on net exports of 1.5 this rise in the trade deficit would be sufficient to knock roughly a percentage point off GDP growth in 2015.
It is remarkable that the Post would not include this sharp rise in the trade deficit in a discussion of the economy’s weak growth in 2015. In this context, it is probably worth noting that the Post is a strong proponent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Supporters of the TPP tend to ignore the trade deficit and its impact on growth and jobs.
The Washington Post gained notoriety in the last decade by relying on David Lereah as its main source the housing market. Lereah was the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors and author of Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust and How You Can Profit from It. It continues to follow the pattern of relying on a narrow group of economists, most of whom seem to specialize in repeating what the others are saying.
It devoted a major news article to explaining why “$2 gasoline isn’t having the economic impact everyone thought it would.” According to the piece, the main problem is that people have increased their savings:
“Kathy A. Jones, Schwab’s chief strategist on credit markets, said that consumers have increased their savings as oil prices have dropped. And as the savings rate has gradually edged higher, Jones said, the use of credit cards has declined. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the personal savings rate climbed to 5.6 and 5.5 percent respectively in October and November, the highest rates in three years.”
Actually, the saving rate is poorly measured since it depends on a measure of income that is subject to large revisions. If we take spending as a share of GDP, we find that it was 68.33 percent in the first three quarters of 2015, down trivially from its 68.4 percent measure in 2014 and almost identical to the 68.37 percent share in 2013. In other words, the data (as opposed to the economists) say people are spending pretty much what we should expect them to spend. If we want to find the sources of weak growth, we should look elsewhere.
While the piece correctly identifies equipment investment as one of the other sources of weakness, remarkably it ignores the trade deficit. Measured in 2009 dollars, the trade deficit rose from $442.5 billion in 2014 to $546.1 billion in the first three quarters of 2015. Assuming a multiplier on net exports of 1.5 this rise in the trade deficit would be sufficient to knock roughly a percentage point off GDP growth in 2015.
It is remarkable that the Post would not include this sharp rise in the trade deficit in a discussion of the economy’s weak growth in 2015. In this context, it is probably worth noting that the Post is a strong proponent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Supporters of the TPP tend to ignore the trade deficit and its impact on growth and jobs.
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Austin Frakt has an interesting discussion in the NYT of patterns in clinical testing of cancer drugs suggesting a bias towards testing drugs treating late-stage patients with little chance of survival as opposed to more promising drugs treating people at early stages or even prevention. However the remedies involve a less demanding testing process by the Food and Drug Administration and increased use of marketing exclusivity to provide more incentive to testing.
Incredibly, there is no discussion of publicly funded clinical trials. In addition to overcoming the bias reported in the piece, publicly funded trials would also have the advantage that the drugs would be available at generic prices as soon as they are approved. In addition, all of the data from the trials would be fully available to other researchers and physicians to help in their prescribing choices.
For those worried about the inefficiency of government testing, the process could be contracted out to private companies, just as the Defense Department contracts out the development of weapon systems. (A big advantage of drug testing over weapon development is that there is no excuse for secrecy in drug testing. Complete openness should be a condition of any contracts.)
The reluctance to consider public funding for clinical trials seems to stem from some strange belief that if the government touches the money, then the resulting process is hopelessly inefficient. It is difficult to understand the basis for such a view.
Austin Frakt has an interesting discussion in the NYT of patterns in clinical testing of cancer drugs suggesting a bias towards testing drugs treating late-stage patients with little chance of survival as opposed to more promising drugs treating people at early stages or even prevention. However the remedies involve a less demanding testing process by the Food and Drug Administration and increased use of marketing exclusivity to provide more incentive to testing.
Incredibly, there is no discussion of publicly funded clinical trials. In addition to overcoming the bias reported in the piece, publicly funded trials would also have the advantage that the drugs would be available at generic prices as soon as they are approved. In addition, all of the data from the trials would be fully available to other researchers and physicians to help in their prescribing choices.
For those worried about the inefficiency of government testing, the process could be contracted out to private companies, just as the Defense Department contracts out the development of weapon systems. (A big advantage of drug testing over weapon development is that there is no excuse for secrecy in drug testing. Complete openness should be a condition of any contracts.)
The reluctance to consider public funding for clinical trials seems to stem from some strange belief that if the government touches the money, then the resulting process is hopelessly inefficient. It is difficult to understand the basis for such a view.
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The NYT headlined an article on the drop in unemployment insurance claims, “Jobless claims near 42-year low as labor market tightens.” While it would be good news if fewer people were filing for unemployment insurance because they were not losing their jobs, this is only part of the story behind the drop in claims. Due to tighter restrictions on unemployment insurance, a much smaller share of the unemployed are eligible for benefits than in prior decades.
For example, in the most recent month, just under 2.2 million people were collecting benefits out of 7.9 million unemployed, which means that 29.1 percent of the unemployed were collected benefits. If we go back to November of 1973 (42 years ago), 1.7 million people were getting benefits out of unemployed population of 4.3 million, for a ratio of 39.5 percent.
Part of the drop in claims in recent years is due to the improvement in the labor market, but part of the decline is due to fewer people being eligible. One can debate whether the tighter restrictions are desirable, but this is clearly a separate issue from a tightening of the labor market.
The NYT headlined an article on the drop in unemployment insurance claims, “Jobless claims near 42-year low as labor market tightens.” While it would be good news if fewer people were filing for unemployment insurance because they were not losing their jobs, this is only part of the story behind the drop in claims. Due to tighter restrictions on unemployment insurance, a much smaller share of the unemployed are eligible for benefits than in prior decades.
For example, in the most recent month, just under 2.2 million people were collecting benefits out of 7.9 million unemployed, which means that 29.1 percent of the unemployed were collected benefits. If we go back to November of 1973 (42 years ago), 1.7 million people were getting benefits out of unemployed population of 4.3 million, for a ratio of 39.5 percent.
Part of the drop in claims in recent years is due to the improvement in the labor market, but part of the decline is due to fewer people being eligible. One can debate whether the tighter restrictions are desirable, but this is clearly a separate issue from a tightening of the labor market.
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I am going to do a bit of nitpicking on a Paul Krugman post on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Krugman notes the continued progress of the ACA in reducing the number of uninsured and keeping costs down. Krugman basic points are right, the ACA is working and its opponents are determined to ignore its success.
The basis of the nitpick is that among the positive items, Krugman tells us that “the pool is getting younger.” The problem with this comment is that the age of the enrollees really does not matter much, what matters is their health. It’s true that on average young people have lower health care costs, but they also pay much lower premiums. The ratio of payments for the oldest group (ages 55-64) to the youngest is three to one for an average policy. The ratio of average costs is roughly 3.5 to 1.
This means that it matters somewhat for the ACA if the distribution skews older, but not very much. The Kaiser Family Foundation did the arithmetic a few years ago and found that even an extreme age skewing only raised costs by 2 percent. What matters much more is if there is a skewing by health. The difference in costs within each age group swamp the differences between age groups.
This matters because it is important to get a proper understanding of the progress of the ACA and what matters. I recall a few years ago talking with some twenty somethings who were saying that they didn’t plan to sign up for the exchanges. They were putting it as sort of a threat because they didn’t like the ACA. (They were single payer supporters — so am I.) I encouraged them to sign up because I thought it was good that they had insurance, but explained it was far more important if the 60-year-olds in good health sign up than if they did.
If this sounds strange, think of the premium as a tax that varies by age. There are large numbers of people of all ages with near zero health care expenses, but the older ones pay a tax that is three times as high as the younger ones pay. In this case, it clearly matters much more that we get the older healthy people into the pool than the younger ones.
Anyhow, this is a relatively small point, but people should be clear on what it is at issue. We should kill the “young invincible” myth for good.
I am going to do a bit of nitpicking on a Paul Krugman post on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Krugman notes the continued progress of the ACA in reducing the number of uninsured and keeping costs down. Krugman basic points are right, the ACA is working and its opponents are determined to ignore its success.
The basis of the nitpick is that among the positive items, Krugman tells us that “the pool is getting younger.” The problem with this comment is that the age of the enrollees really does not matter much, what matters is their health. It’s true that on average young people have lower health care costs, but they also pay much lower premiums. The ratio of payments for the oldest group (ages 55-64) to the youngest is three to one for an average policy. The ratio of average costs is roughly 3.5 to 1.
This means that it matters somewhat for the ACA if the distribution skews older, but not very much. The Kaiser Family Foundation did the arithmetic a few years ago and found that even an extreme age skewing only raised costs by 2 percent. What matters much more is if there is a skewing by health. The difference in costs within each age group swamp the differences between age groups.
This matters because it is important to get a proper understanding of the progress of the ACA and what matters. I recall a few years ago talking with some twenty somethings who were saying that they didn’t plan to sign up for the exchanges. They were putting it as sort of a threat because they didn’t like the ACA. (They were single payer supporters — so am I.) I encouraged them to sign up because I thought it was good that they had insurance, but explained it was far more important if the 60-year-olds in good health sign up than if they did.
If this sounds strange, think of the premium as a tax that varies by age. There are large numbers of people of all ages with near zero health care expenses, but the older ones pay a tax that is three times as high as the younger ones pay. In this case, it clearly matters much more that we get the older healthy people into the pool than the younger ones.
Anyhow, this is a relatively small point, but people should be clear on what it is at issue. We should kill the “young invincible” myth for good.
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Eduardo Porter discusses the question of whether retirees will have sufficient income in twenty or thirty years. He points out that if no additional revenue is raised, Social Security will not be able to pay full scheduled benefits after 2034.
While this is true, it is important to note that this would have also been true in the 1940, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. If projections were made for Social Security that assumed no increase in the payroll tax in the future, there would have been a severe shortfall in the trust fund making it unable to pay full scheduled benefits.
We have now gone 25 years with no increase in the payroll tax, by far the longest such period since the program was created. With life expectancy continually increasing, it is inevitable that a fixed tax rate will eventually prove inadequate if the retirement age is not raised. (The age for full benefits has already been raised from 65 to 66 and will rise further to 67 by 2022, but no further increases are scheduled.)
The past increases in the Social Security tax have generally not imposed a large burden on workers because real wages rose. The Social Security trustees project average wages to rise by more than 50 percent over the next three decades. If most workers share in this wage growth, then the two or three percentage point tax increase that might be needed to keep the program fully funded would be a small fraction of the wage growth workers see over this period. Of course, if income gains continue to be redistributed upward, then any increase in the Social Security tax will be a large burden.
For this reason, Social Security should be seen first and foremost as part of the story of wage inequality. If workers get their share of the benefits of productivity growth then supporting a larger population of retirees will not be a problem. On the other hand, if the wealthy manage to prevent workers from benefiting from growth during their working lives, they will also likely prevent them from having a secure retirement.
Addendum:
Since folks asked, roughly 40 percent of the shortfall projected by the Social Security trustees would not be there if there had not been a massive upward redistribution of income over the last three decades. The story is here.
Eduardo Porter discusses the question of whether retirees will have sufficient income in twenty or thirty years. He points out that if no additional revenue is raised, Social Security will not be able to pay full scheduled benefits after 2034.
While this is true, it is important to note that this would have also been true in the 1940, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. If projections were made for Social Security that assumed no increase in the payroll tax in the future, there would have been a severe shortfall in the trust fund making it unable to pay full scheduled benefits.
We have now gone 25 years with no increase in the payroll tax, by far the longest such period since the program was created. With life expectancy continually increasing, it is inevitable that a fixed tax rate will eventually prove inadequate if the retirement age is not raised. (The age for full benefits has already been raised from 65 to 66 and will rise further to 67 by 2022, but no further increases are scheduled.)
The past increases in the Social Security tax have generally not imposed a large burden on workers because real wages rose. The Social Security trustees project average wages to rise by more than 50 percent over the next three decades. If most workers share in this wage growth, then the two or three percentage point tax increase that might be needed to keep the program fully funded would be a small fraction of the wage growth workers see over this period. Of course, if income gains continue to be redistributed upward, then any increase in the Social Security tax will be a large burden.
For this reason, Social Security should be seen first and foremost as part of the story of wage inequality. If workers get their share of the benefits of productivity growth then supporting a larger population of retirees will not be a problem. On the other hand, if the wealthy manage to prevent workers from benefiting from growth during their working lives, they will also likely prevent them from having a secure retirement.
Addendum:
Since folks asked, roughly 40 percent of the shortfall projected by the Social Security trustees would not be there if there had not been a massive upward redistribution of income over the last three decades. The story is here.
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