Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Fact-based, data-driven research and analysis to advance democratic debate on vital issues shaping people’s lives.
Center for Economic and Policy Research
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW
Suite 400
Washington, DC 20009
Tel: 202-293-5380
Fax: 202-588-1356
https://cepr.net
I happened to notice Matt Kranz’s calculations in USA Today of what someone would have earned owning shares of GE stock since 1970. The calculations don’t adjust for inflation, which means that no one can assess what their real return would have been. Perhaps even more striking is the fact that the calculation does not include dividend payouts. Typically close to half of the real return on a stock will be in the form of dividend payouts.