Disposable incomes continue their relentless decline - down over $50bn so far this year

[TakeALeftTurn]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tVaV9k1aJXE/UG29L-kE92I/AAAAAAAAAP4/rx4tbsBm-Mk/s400/Real+Median+Household+income.jpg

So far this year :-

131,000 full time jobs have been created
141,000 part time jobs have been created
291,000 people have taken an additional part time job (291,000 more multiple job holders).

This gives an increase in total wages of around $9bn (being generous).

However the Fiscal Cliff deal imposed tax hikes of $200bn on the middle class and below.
So far this year taxes have risen by $66bn

Disposable incomes have declined by around $57bn so far this year.

It is hardly surprising that the latest economic data indicates that the US is on the brink of recession. (See the blue line.)
http://www.demeadville.com/baro.html

Other factors
Hours worked is the same as January so there is no difference.

Inflation in basic necessities is higher than wage rises, particularly in things like food and gas.
The $57bn decline in disposable incomes is a significant understatement.

Labor rates will continue to be pressured by the huge over hang in the global labor supply and by increases in real unemployment.

Real unemployment has gone up by around 330,000 people since the start of the year.
(Only 272,000 new people have found jobs and 150,000+ jobs a month need to be added for flat unemployment due to population increases.)
Large numbers of people have dropped out of the labor force because there simply aren't enough jobs out there.

Real unemployment
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

When Obamacare is fully implemented in 2014, Healthcare spending will increase by around $300bn.
Almost all of it will be paid for by the middle class.
It will take around $300bn out of middle class pockets, that won't be spent on everything else.
As more people become aware of the expected 30 to 100% rises in Healthcare premiums next year, they are likely to start saving up for it and reducing their spending.
We have already seen a decline in credit card debt of around $9bn recently.

The recent 10% rises in house prices are revealed to be concentrated in the previously greatest bubble areas.
The first entrant hedge funds that bought up thousands of properties to rent out since 2009, are now getting out of the market.
Mortgage applications recently took a nose dive, largely due to the recent 20 basis points increase in average new mortgage rates.

New housing starts declined by 16.5% in April.

Things are going to get much worse in 2014.

Appendices

1. Aggregated jobs numbers for 2013 - jobs data without the hype

Employment data aggregated January to April 2013

I haven't seen the jobs numbers (NFP's) totalled up by month anywhere else, so I thought I would do it.

Household Survey
Total 274,000
Part time jobs 143,000
Full time jobs 131,000

Average 68,500 jobs per month

Establishment (business survey) - the numbers that get quoted in the media headlines

Total 754,000

Average 188,500 jobs per month

The difference between the two reports

The difference of 480,000 between the two reports can largely be accounted for by :

1) The Household survey does not count people who start a 2nd or 3rd job (291,000)
These are almost exclusively low paid part time jobs.

2) Overstatements on the BLS Birth/Death numbers of around 133,000. See 2.

2. Business start ups. The BLS Birth Death model is wrong

The number of new business start ups is declining and the number of people in those start ups is also declining.

During Bush and Clinton 11.3 people per thousand were employed in new business start ups.
The figure for the Obama period is 7.8 per thousand.

The number of new business start ups per thousand population is also declining.
For a long period the number was around 20.
Recently it has gone down to 19.

The reasons given for the decline in new business start ups are :-
Occupational licensing regimes
The increase in other government regulations
General economic uncertainty

New regulations are killing Business Start Ups and Jobs
http://www.insideronline.org/feature.cfm?id=355

New business start ups are declining.
In 2011 there were 543,000 new business start ups.
In 2012 this declined to 513,000.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100649473

Yet despite this trend of fewer new businesses each year, the BLS are still estimating an increase in their Birth/Model numbers for the number of people employed in new businesses.

If a similar thing is happening now, to 2012, we would expect there to be a decline in the Birth/Death model of about 20,000 per month - year to year.
This would show a cumulative minus 80,000 jobs from January to April, whereas the Birth/Death model has reported a cumulative +53,000,- an overstatement of 133,000 jobs so far this year.

[HiPointDem]

1. kr

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Finally. A President and Congress that can stand up to special interests like the middle class.

And other moochers like the old, the sick and the poor.

Once the sequester austerity is fully felt, Americans will be in good shape. Because, make no mistake, it is only through pain that the little people feel pleasure.

Regards,

Third-Way Manny

[Fearless]

19. Indeed.

[Turbineguy]

3. Blankfein

got $26 Miliion last year. How do you think that gets paid for?

[JHB]

4. Is there a source for "new regulations killing stat-ups" that isn't Heritage Foundation?

They're a spin tank with a history of selectively presenting information in a way that is misleading, but makes for a nice academic veneer for conservative politicians to point to when pushing their policies.

It's a "lies, damn lines, and statistics" thing.

[TakeALeftTurn]

5. That is why I couched it with "reasons given"

But the data is out there that :-

The number of new business startups per year is declining and

The average number of people employed in those startups is also declining.

[TakeALeftTurn]

6. I know that the Heritage Foundation is a right wing Neocon think tank

so they will spin it.

But I haven't seen anyone else even discussing why the number of new business startups is declining.

For a very long time the number of new business startups per year per 1,000 increase in population was about 20.

It has gone down over the last year or so to 19.

[Egalitarian Thug]

10. And you probably won't hear anybody talking about it, especially the Reich-wing.

The Wall Street economy won.

Government won't enforce laws that major players break, no matter how egregiously, so there are ever shrinking chances of competing with them successfully, so there is less willingness to invest in the start up because the investors don't want to lose their investments. State and local governments, after giving away the farm to the corporations and thus, faced with decreasing revenues, are squeezing small businesses more and more to make them up.

Couple this with the fact that the number of individuals with sufficient assets to self-finance a small or even micro business is still falling and you have a negative feedback loop.

Nobody in power is working for us, there is no longer any refuge or support for people or businesses that are not the plutonomy.

[TakeALeftTurn]

11. All of what you say is true

There are also economies of scale for large companies in dealing with new regulations.
It costs them less per $ of profit or revenue compared to a small outfit employing just a few people.

The number of hoops you have to go through just to get a new business off the ground is also a strong disincentive for start ups.

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. Part of the Big Squeeze.

Beaverton OR is a good example Nike was exempted from paying the $8M - $10M in taxes after blackmailing and bribing the city. This starves the whole city, especially the schools. Nike gives the schools $1M and gets multiple millions in free advertising as a good "corporate citizen" from the media. The city institutes a slew of new fees (taxes) on all the businesses and potential businesses there that are not Nike.

Would you sink you life savings into starting a business there?

[HiPointDem]

15. no capital, no market.

[SoCalDem]

7. It's also the quality of the jobs

A person who lost a $20 hr-w/benefits job last year, counts as one job lost

the two $8 hr w/NO benefits, taken out of desperation to replace that job lost count as TWO jobs "created"..

[TakeALeftTurn]

8. Exactly

The quality of the jobs being lost vs the quality of the jobs being created has become even more important than the bare up and down numbers.

Well paid jobs are being lost.
Large numbers of part time, minimum wage and low paid jobs are being created.

There are still 131,000 more full time jobs than there were at the start of the year.
But that's only 32,000 a month.
And probably more than half of those are low paid.

See this
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/business/majority-of-new-jobs-pay-low-wages-study-finds.html?_r=1&

[SoCalDem]

9. and the hit to the family is immeasurable as well

a $20 hr full time job allows for some family time.. 2 shitty part time $8 hr jobs burns more fuel getting to and from 2 jobs , and less time with families, since those are often jobs with weird hours .

[ctsnowman]

13. Well what we need

is more "free" trade and H1B visas.

[HiPointDem]

17. and that's exactly what we're going to get!! isn't that great!! they're expanding h1b visas and

there's a new 'free' (cough, more monopolistic intellectual property protections) 'trade' agreement in the pipeline!!

yay team!!

[ctsnowman]

23. I feel your pain.

[4Q2u2]

14. Disposable Income?

Is that like spare change, because brother I do not have a dime. Between the inflation of goods that were purposefully taken out of the index and QE giving all our money to Wall Street, while under cutting savings accounts and the like. Whom ever "They" are they sure have helped me dispose of all of my income.

[marmar]

16. k/r

[og1]

18. should we expect anything less

we have a massified democracy it has a nucleus of an oligarchy where a few of our choosen familes ex. the bush's and clintons are continously running for political office and financed by the plutocrates!

[hrmjustin]

20. Welcome to DU my friend!

[uppityperson]

21. Welcome to DU, are you equating the Bushs with the Clintons? Have you been on DU

prior to this as your name is a bit familiar?

[mountain grammy]

22. Sorry, TakeALeftTurn, I think your left turn was just to keep you

from falling off your far right cliff, but you've remained close.