EF-0. Economic Stats wi links to original sources. Links to LBN jobs threads thru 1/6/23

Bush I: 5.4% to 7.3%, Change= + 1.9%
Clinton: 7.3% to 4.2%, Change= - 3.1%
Bush II: 4.2% to 7.8%, Change= + 3.6%

Obama's first 5 months: 7.8% to 9.5%, Change= + 1.7% (Jan '09 - May '09)
Obama thereafter: 9.5% to 4.7%, Change= - 4.8% (Jun '09 - Jan '17)
Obama entire term: 7.8% to 4.7%, Change= - 3.1% (Jan '09 - Jan '17)

Trump so far: 4.7% to 3.6%, Change= - 1.1% (Jan '17 - Jan '20)

(June 2009, just 5 months after Obama took office, is when the recession ended, per NBER.org)

"Many economists say retirements are causing about half of the labor force shrinkage. Others say it's 60 percent, and yet others believe it's more like 40 percent."

with a mini-explanation of each https://historyinpieces.com/research/us-unemployment-rates-president
Credit: UpInArms 4/9/20 https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142466757#post17

# Fact: The count of the unemployed and the unemployment rate is NOT a count of those receiving unemployment benefits, nor is unemployment benefit receiver status factored at all into any of the official national unemployment rate statistics (U1, U2, U3, U4, U5, U6). Rather, the national unemployment rate is based on a survey of 60,000 households chosen at random. See: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm

"How the Government Measures Unemployment" cps_htgm.htm

and search the page for the word "insurance"

People in the survey are counted as unemployed (and thus part of the official (U3) unemployment rate) if they are jobless and looked for work some time in the past 4 weeks. They are counted as unemployed in the U4, U5, and U6 statistics if they looked for work some time in the past 12 months. It has nothing at all to do with whether they are collecting unemployment benefits or not, or how long they have been unemployed.

However, unemployment insurance data is used as one of the inputs for determining state and substate unemployment rates --

"because the CPS survey of 60,000 households nationwide is insufficient for creating reliable monthly estimates for statewide and substate areas, LAUS (Local Area Unemployment Statistics) uses three different estimating procedures, each being the most appropriate for the level of geography being estimated. In general, estimates for the states are developed using statistical models that incorporate current and historical data from the CPS, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program, and regular state unemployment insurance (UI) systems. These model-based state estimates are also controlled in "real time" to sum to the not seasonally adjusted national monthly CPS totals."

(also from the above http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm link).

Note the last part -- that the state totals are adjusted to sum up to the national total. So on average, any undercount bias resulting from using (in part) state unemployment insurance (UI) data is eliminated by adjusting the state totals to sum up to the national CPS result (which doesn't use state UI data at all)

---------------------------
However, over the longer term, undoubtedly a cut-off in benefits will affect the unemployment rate numbers, for example:

# People who lose benefits will be more likely to take any job out there, no matter how far below their education, training, and experience, thus lowering the unemployment rate (since they are no longer unemployed).

# Some people who were making some effort to look for work only in order to continue to receive unemployment benefits (looking for work is a requirement to receive benefits) will drop the charade of looking for work when their benefits are cut off. This will also lower the unemployment rate (people who have not looked for work in the last 4 weeks are not counted as unemployed (U-3) or the last 12 months (U-4 - U-6) ). It will also lower the labor force participation rate (officially the labor force is those employed or who have looked for work in the last 4 weeks).

(People in the above category are not necessarily "cheats" in my book -- for example people who may not really be looking right now because they are completing coursework in order to earn a certificate in order to improve their chances of getting a job that utilizes their education and experience is not Reagan's "welfare queen" IMHO)

# Job Openings and Labor Turnover SUMMARY - http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm

# Job Openings and Labor Turnover Table of Contents - http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.toc.htm

# State Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (State JOLTS) https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jltst.nr0.htm

# FRED graph of Job Openings, Total NonFarm (JTSJOL) -- https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSJOL

# Job Openings and Labor Turnover Technical Note -- https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.tn.htm

The job openings are not a count of job postings. They are based on surveys of companies. It is not required that an opening be posted in order for it to be counted.

# This Mahatmakanejeeves thread (JOLTS report for October 2015 that came out December 8) has a graph of Job Openings, Hires, and Quits from January 2001 on, as well as a graph of Reasons Why People Leave Jobs ( Layoffs, Voluntary Quits, Other Separations ) from 2001 on -- http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141283919

# This Mahatmakanejeeves thread (JOLTS report for January 2016 that came out March 17) has a graph of Job Openings, Hires, and Quits from January 2007 on -- http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141283919

# Latest as of 2/7/20 - this one from 1/21/20
https://www.democraticunderground.com/111687284

# Number of unemployed persons per job opening, seasonally adjusted
Interesting graph: it was about 6.4 at the height of the Great Recession and is now about 0.95 (January 2020)
https://www.bls.gov/charts/job-openings-and-labor-turnover/unemp-per-job-opening.htm

Table A-9: Multiple Jobholders: January 2020: 8,152,000 Percent of employed: 5.1%. -- So according to this and Politifact, it is a myth that most people are working 2 or 3 jobs.
. . . http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm
. . . Politifact-- https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/18/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-wrong-several-counts-abou/

This piece from a Forbes contributor explains why the number of multiple job holders might be underestimated by the BLS. (Caution: this is not Forbes' opinion, but rather the contributors' opinion. Right next to the word "contributor" after the author's name (Erik Sherman) is a little info icon. When one clicks on that, it says "Opinions expressed by Forbes contributors are their own".

It's the equivalent of an "op-ed" in say the New York Times and Washington Post where they try to have a variety of opinions to look "balanced" and, well, just to present a variety of opinions.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2018/07/22/more-people-probably-work-multiple-jobs-than-the-government-realizes/#776e2d002a21

See Table A-9 ( http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm ) and Table A-16 (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm ). Table A-16 has a breakdown into 4 categories: primary job full-time, secondary job part-time, etc. etc. Also by men and women.

# Multiple Job holders, thousands, seasonaly adjusted -
. . . https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS12026619
. . . http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12026619

# Multiple Jobholders as a Percent of Employed, seasonally adjusted
. . . https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS12026620
. . . http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12026620

# Multiple Job Holders - Fred -- several breakdowns, each with their BLS timeseries numbers, e.g. LNS12026620
. . . https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/categories/32450

# http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat36.htm -- is only by year, e.g. 2014, 2015. lots of breakdowns -- by age, by race/ethnicity

# Facts: The broadest measure of unemployment rate that the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes is the U-6 -- Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of all civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers, seasonally adjusted http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS13327709
( Definitions of alternative meausres of unemployment: http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm )

U-6 counts as unemployed all who have looked for a job sometime, even just once, in the past year, and who are not employed and say they want a job now. And part-time workers who want full-time work. (Whereas the headline official (U-3) unemployment rate counts only those who have looked for work in the past 4 weeks, and counts all part-timers as employed).

The U-6 unemployment rate was 15.4% in January 2009 when Bush left office and Obama took office.
When Obama left office and Trump took office, it was 9.4% (January 2017).
Recently it was 6.9% in January 2020. It had been on a fairly steady decline since about April 2010 (when it peaked at 17.2%). ( LNS13327709 )

There are even broader measures of unemployment to be found on the Internet (where just about anything can be found and dressed up as reasonable) such as the Shadow Stats series unemployment rate. My understanding is that the BLS's U-6 includes people who have looked for a job sometime, even just once, in the past 12 months ( http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm ). I don't see any particular reason to broaden the definition of unemployment rate to those, who although they say they want a job now, haven't bothered to do any job-hunting for over a year. How far should we extend it?

Should we also count as unemployed the house spouse in a one-high-income household -- or the happily retired person -- who, if an ideal dream job came up, would consider it? See the next item on what if you counted everyone who says they want a job.

If you count everyone who says they want a job, even if they have made no effort to find one in many years...

More specifically if you counted every jobless person who answers "yes" to the question "do you want a job" and every part-time worker that answers "yes" to the question, "do you want a full time job?" (even if they have made no effort to find a job in years), then the unemployment rate is 8.8% as of January 2020 -- This is 1.7 percentage points higher than the BLS's January U-6 unemployment rate of 6.9% ). .

Paul Solman of the PBS Newshour created this "U-7" indicator.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/02/a-disjointed-jobs-report-and-u-7-month-two.html

I don't know how to easily find the latest and past values of this indicator, but try this first: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/solman-scale/ .

If that doesn't work out, to find the latest value, go to the PBS Newshour's "Making Sense" page ( http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense ) and scroll down until you find an article about unemployment and jobs that was posted on the Friday that the jobs report comes out (usually the first Friday of the month). There will be a big graphic of several jobless and job indicators, that includes this "U-7" (later: well, lately the big graphic has been dropped, darn).

For the June 2015 report, I came close (12.80%) to duplicating Paul Solman's U-7 (12.73%) as follows:

(a1.) Unemployed: 8,299,000 (Table A-1) -- these are officially unemployed because they are jobless and looked for work sometime in the past 4 weeks

(a2.) Persons not in labor force but who currently want a job: 6,076,000 (Table A-1) - these are not counted among the officially unemployed because they haven't looked for work sometime in the past 4 weeks

(a3.) Part time for economic reasons: 6,505,000 (Table A-8) -- these are people who are working part-time who want a full-time job

(a4.) Expanded Unemployed: The sum of a1 + a2 + a3 above
` ` ` = 8,299,000 + 6,076,000 + 6,505,000 = 20,880,000

(b1.) (Official) Labor force: 157,037,000 -- this is the employed + officially unemployed

(b2.) Expanded Labor Force = (Official) Labor Force + a2
` ` ` = 157,037,000 + 6,076,000 = 163,113,000
(Note that a3 (part-time for economic reasons) is already included in the (Official) Labor force, so it is included in the above Expanded Labor Force too.

(c1.) Expanded unemployment rate that includes all who want a job, including part-timers who want full time work = Expanded Unemployed / Expanded Labor Force = 20,880,000 / 163,113,000 = 12.80%

(Update: For the August 2015 report, I calculated U-7 as 12.54%, while Solman's number is 12.48%. For the December report, I calculated U-7 as 12.10%, while Solman's number is 12.03%. In July 2016, I calculated 11.86%, while Solman's number is 11.8%. Generally my calculation of U-7 has been a bit higher than Solman's, but less than 0.1% higher. ).

So those who tell you that the "real" unemployment rate is 23% or something like that are pulling your leg. Particulary when someone tries to charge you $89 in order to gain access to web pages where he MIGHT tell you how he comes up with his number.

Using rhetorical gamesmanship, some people (including Trump during the 2016 campaign, but not since becoming president) cite the BLS statistic, "Not In The Labor Force" -- which in September 2016 was a bit over 94 million -- as being "94 million jobless Americans" or "94 million unemployed"; usually in the context of discussing those who have given up looking for work in desperation. (Incidentally, during the course of Trump's presidency, this number has increased from 94.4 million in January 2017 to 94.9 million in January 2020, but of course you don't here anything about this number anymore from Trump or the administration) ( links just below the next paragraph )

Even though the vast majority of these don't want a job now (or ever in some cases). I guess some people just don't think people should ever be full-time students or ever voluntarily retired or ever full-time homemakers or ever take some time out of paid labor for other pursuits.

That statistic comes from http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15000000

and counts every jobless person 16 and over who has not looked for work in the past 4 weeks. Yes, including full time students. And yes, including the elderly, even centenarians.

There is another statistic that is far more relevant: Not In The Labor Force, Wants Job Now

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15026639

In January 2017 (Obama's last month):
94,435,000 Not In Labor Force
5,739,000 Not In Labor Force, Wants Job Now
6.1% Percentage of those not in the labor force who wants a job now

In January 2020
94,896,000 Not In Labor Force
4,904,000 Not In Labor Force, Wants Job Now
5.2% Percentage of those not in the labor force who wants a job now

Note that under Trump, "Not In Labor Force" INcreased by 461,000 (so that's why Trump and the Trumpanzees never mention that number anymore. In the 2016 Trump campaign rhetoric, those were all "jobless Americans" )

(While the more important number, "Not In Labor Force Wants Job Now" decreased by 835,000 )

These statistics are available in Table A-1: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
---or as noted above, from---
# Not In Labor Force: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15000000
# Not In Labor Force, Wants Job Now: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15026639

# Facts: First, the changes described in the above document actually increased the official unemployment rate (today's U-3) by about 0.2 percentage points (compared to the old official unemployment rate, then called U-5).

The big changes were in the more lenient alternative definitions of unemployment. The one that is most popular in the media both in the old days and the new days is the most lenient of the alternative ones -- U-7 in the old survey, and U-6 in the new one. (The other alternative measures barely seem to get any attention outside of academia).

Per that document, the definition change of discouraged workers cut the number of officially counted discouraged workers by about 50% in the new U-6 compared to the old U-7, and also decreased the number of part-time workers for economic reasons (part-time workers who want full time work) by about 20%.

I tried to emulate the old U-7 with today's data (well, this was back in early February 2015 using the January 2015 jobs report data) (I doubled the number of marginal workers and increased the part-time for economic reasons by 20%) and found it to be at most 13.4% (I made some simplifications that result in a high-side estimate), compared to the current U-6 at 11.3% (again these are January 2015 jobs reports numbers). So it's not like there is a humongous dramatic difference between the old measure and the new on this most lenient of the unemployment measures.

(January's official unemployment rate (U-3) and alternatives (U-1 thru U-6) are in Table A-15 in http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf )

( Definitions of alternative measures of unemployment: http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm )

Anyway, its worth emphasizing again that the official unemployment rate (now U-3) was barely altered, actually slightly increased, compared to the old U-5 official definition. And that the changes did not all that dramatically reduce U-6 compared to its old survey U-7 counterpart.

Even counting everyone who says they want a job, period (including part-time workers who want full-time work), the January 2015 unemployment rate was 13.5%, based on Paul Solman's U-7 number for the January 2015 jobs report, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/higher-unemployment-rate-may-good-news-economy/ . Update: for January 2020, Paul's U-7 number is 8.8% (my calculation), and the BLS's U-6 number is 6.9%)

More detail about the 1994 Clinton era changes: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141009906#post67

# Fact: Since the bottom of the jobs market in February 2010 (coincidentally one month before Obamacare was passed and signed) through the end of the Obama administration:

Part-time workers increased by 264,000 while full-time workers increased by 13,847,000

And no, Obamacare (signed into law March 2010, and first going into effect on a mass scale in January 2014) did not cause a noticable shift from full-time to part-time work.

Part time workers: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12600000
Full time workers: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12500000

Under G.W. Bush, Part-time workers increased by 2,954,000
while full-time workers increased by 1,556,000

Under Obama, Part-time workers increased by 986,000 (Jan '17 minus Jan '09)
while full-time workers increased by 8,807,000 (Jan '17 minus Jan '09)

Seems like if anyone was the part-time president, it was G.W. Bush.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Using the BLS's Table A-9 part-time and full-time numbers http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm
Part-time workers: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12600000
Full-time workers: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12500000

Under Trump, Part-time workers increased by 83,000 thru Jan 2020
while full-time workers increased by 6,536,000 thru Jan 2020

-------------------------------------------------
By the way, the BLS's definition of full-time workers is 35 or more hours/week, while the Obamacare employer mandate for providing healthcare insurance is 30 hours/week. So if all that many employers were moving away from full-time to part-time jobs, it would show up in the above BLS statistics, but sure doesn't seem to. Also, involuntary part-timers has been falling for years ( http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12032194 ).

# Facts: The number headlined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the media is the NET jobs created.

You can see a count of total nonfarm employment in thousands -- http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001

So for example in January 2018 the table displayed at the above link shows there were 147,767 thousand (i.e. 147.767 million) nonfarm employees, and in February 2018 there were 148,097 thousand (i.e. 148.097 million). The media and the BLS reports the difference (148,097 thousand - 147,767 thousand) = 330,000 as the total jobs created in Feburary. So this is a net number.

At the same link, you can see the monthly differences by clicking on the "More Formatting Options" big blue link near the upper right of the page, and in the box in the upper left side of the page that appears, you will see the "Original Data Value" checkbox checked. Additionally, check the "1-month Net Change" checkbox. Then click the "Retrieve Data" button below it.

On the page that appears, you will see the table described in the paragraph above (the total number of nonfarm employees in thousands) followed by a table of the monthly changes in these numbers. For example, it will show the February 2018 employee count change as being 330,000 -- that is 330,000 employees higher than in February.

(Or click this link just to see the monthly changes: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth)

# Facts: The unemployment rate is not based on comparing the working age population to the number of jobs. Rather, the unemployment rate is based on a monthly survey of 60,000 households (comprising an average of about 110,000 individuals age 16 and over -- with no upper limit in age, e.g. even centenarians are included). The age-16-and-over individuals are asked a series of questions, from which their employment status is determined, e.g. employed (and whether holding multiple jobs, and whether part-time or full-time), or unemployed, or not in the labor force, etc.

See: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrong on several counts about unemployment, Politifact, 7/18/18 ( https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/18/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-wrong-several-counts-abou/ )

When the BLS determines the unemployment rate, a person is counted as employed as long as they have at least one job. They don’t get counted twice if they have two jobs. So Ocasio-Cortez is wrong in saying multiple job holding and long hours affect the unemployment rate.

The number of multiple job holders is only a small fraction -- about 5% -- of the total number of employed.

Table A-9: Multiple Jobholders: January 2019: 7,850,000 Percent of employed: 5.0%.
. . . http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm

# Multiple Jobholders Level (thousands): https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12026619
# Multiple Jobholders as a Percent of Total Employed: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12026620

See also the "Multiple JobHolders" section above.

For more details, see the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "How the Government Measures Unemployment" ( https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm )

The ADP numbers cover only about 20% of the nation's private workforce.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20191008a.htm

the ADP National Employment Report and ADP Small Business Report are derived from ADP payroll data representing 460,000 U.S. clients and nearly 26 million workers
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/september-2021-adp-national-employment-121500533.html

Google: ADP vs. Bureau of labor statistics job numbers

The two can diverge because the nonfarm payroll jobs ( https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth ) and the unemployment rate ( http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 ) come from two different surveys.

The unemployment rate comes from the Household Survey (CPS) http://www.bls.gov/cps/,

and the payroll jobs numbers comes from the Establishment Survey (CES) ( http://www.bls.gov/ces/ ). They often widely diverge, and the household survey is much more volatile and lower accuracy.

For example here are the two compared from January 2018 through January 2020,

Monthly changes for Non-farm payroll employment from the Establishment Survey, thousands
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
2018 121 406 176 137 278 219 136 244 80 201 134 182
2019 269 1 147 210 85 182 194 207 208 185 261 147(P)
2020 225(P)
P : preliminary
(Yup, that's a "1" in February 2019, meaning only 1,000 net jobs created that month ... I had to look at it again)

Monthly changes for "Employed" from the Household Survey, thousands
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11000000?output_view=net_1mth
2018 530 715 -99 58 132 395 -96 -405 310 527 57 449
2019 31 -95 -112 -389 236 351 240 521 157 350 -54 209
2020 50
January and February data of every year is affected by changes in population controls.

So for January 2020, the nonfarm payroll jobs number increased by 225,000 while the "Employed" (Household Survey) increased by only 50,000.

Again, the unemployment rate comes from the Household Survey.

Anyway that's one of the main reasons for the two to diverge big time. Another is the number of people who decide to look for a job. Only people who have looked for work in the past 4 weeks are counted as unemployed in the official (U3) unemployment statistics. So a surge in the number of people who start looking for work in the last 4 weeks -- perhaps because of a perceived improving job market -- can cause the unemployment rate to go up.

Jack Welch famously made an enormous hoo hah back in 2012 when the unemployment rate went up one month while there was a big number of new jobs reported, accusing Obama's libruh bureaucrats and frightened minions of cooking the numbers. But we're smart enough not to fall for it, according to Jack Welch and the right wing media at the time. (Actually a divergence between the job count change and the unemployment rate happens often).

      About cooked numbers

What I've found is that if there is some angle showing that Obama's record is better than Trump's, people quote the numbers as if they are divinely-revealed truth. For example, I've seen innumerable examples all over DU, pointing out that Obama has created more jobs in his last 3 years than Trump has in his 3 years so far, including a Pic Of The Moment, to cite one of many. https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017567831

What I've also found is that in the months when the job numbers are poor, such as February and May of 2019, people quote the numbers as if they are divinely-revealed truth proving that we're headed for a recession.

But in months where the job numbers are good, then the conspiracy theorists come out, and we're all naive ignoramuses not to see that we're being played. (Que Art Bell theme music).

# When Clinton left office and G.W. Bush took office, the S&P 500 index was at 1343.
# When G.W. Bush left office and Obama took office, the S&P 500 index was at 850.
# When Obama left office and and Trump took office, the S&P 500 index was at 2264.
# Thus under G.W. Bush, the S&P 500 index DROPPED 37%, from 1343 to 850.
. . While under Obama, the S&P 500 index rose from 850 to 2264, an INCREASE of 166% (a doubling plus an additional 66%, or 2.66 X)
# As of Friday 2/7/20 close, the S&P 500 index is at 3328, an increase of 47% under Trump so far (in fairness, remember we're comparing Trump's 3 years to Obama and G.W. Bush's 8 years -- if Trump continued at the same rate for 8 years, his 8 year record would be ( 1.47^(8/3) - 1 )*100% = 179% increase. "^" is exponentiation. ).

# Another timepoint often cited: at the close on election day, November 8, 2016 (the last close before Trump's election was announced), the S&P 500 stood at 2140

(Total returns - which includes dividends - are higher than the index gains by about 2% / year).

(I use the S&P 500 index rather than the Dow Jones Industrial Average index (DJIA) because it is a much broader index of U.S. stocks, containing about 75% of the total U.S. stock market by capitalization. I would rather use the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index (^ DWC (without the space between the ^ and the D) but its history extends only back to 2004). Other U.S. total market indexes also extend back only a few years.

Jan 19, 2001 10,587 Last Dow close under Clinton

Jan 16, 2009 8,281 Last Dow close under Bush (a 22% DECLINE under Bush)

Jan 19, 2017 19,732 Last Dow close under Obama (a 138% INCREASE under Obama -- that's a doubling plus an additional 38%, or 2.38 X)

As of Thursday 2/7/20 close, the Dow is at 29,103, an increase of 47% under Trump so far. (remember we're comparing Trump's 3 years to Obama and G.W. Bush's 8 years each)

# Another timepoint often: at the close on election day, November 8, 2016 (the last close before Trump's election was announced), the Dow stood at 18,333

(Total returns - which includes dividends - are higher than the index gains by about 2 to 3 percent per year)

Democrats: +460%, Republicans: +110% (in nominal dollar terms)
Democrats: +300%, Republicans: 0% (in inflation-adjusted terms)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/10/live-chart?fsrc=scn/tw/te/dc/gopsmacked

https://twitter.com/rickwtyler/status/1161740031012352000
The above is a bit out of date-- at about Trump's 3 year anniversary (Feb 7, 2020 close actually), Trump's S&P 500 is up 47%.

Source article/details: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/stock-market-by-president/index.htm

# Official powerty rate: 11.8%, 0.5 percentage points lower than in 2017, and lower than in 2007 - the year before the most recent recession.

The poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites was 8.1% in 2018, down from 8.5% in 2017.

The poverty rate for blacks was 20.8%, while the poverty rate for Asians was 10.1%. The poverty rate for Hispanics was 17.6%. Among blacks, Asians and Hispanics, 2018 poverty rates were not statistically different from 2017.

# health insurance - the rate and number of people without health insurance increased from 7.9%, or 25.6 million, in 2017 to 8.5%, or 27.5 million, in 2018

The percentage of people with health insurance coverage for all or part of 2018 was 91.5%, lower than the rate in 2017 (92.1%).

# Median household income: $63,179 in 2018, not statistically different than the 2017 inflation-adjusted income of $62,626.

# Between 2017 and 2018, the real median earnings of all workers increased 3.4% to $40,247. The 2018 real median earnings of men and women who worked full-time, year-round increased by 3.4% and 3.3%, respectively, between 2017 and 2018.

The poverty rate of 14.5% in 2013 (the latest poverty figures as of August 2015), is higher than in 2008: 13.2% (but it is down from 15.1% in 2010).

Before Bush took office, it was 11.3%, when he left, it was 14.3%. (So the latest poverty rate, 2013: 14.5% is 0.2% higher than the 14.3% rate when Obama took office)

Poverty statistics don't include benefits like EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) or SNAP (aka Food Stamps) (it does however include Social Security and unemployment insurance), so the EITC and SNAP increases in Obama's 2009 stimulus are not counted in the poverty rate - unfair to Obama's record.

But an alternative measure of poverty that includes EITC and SNAP still finds the poverty rate higher under Obama's presidency

The poverty rate is based on the cost of food in 1963

The next poverty estimates are due in September).

The article has many links to articles / reports that explain or document many of the above assertions

Big happy report: 5.2% increase in real (meaning inflation-adjusted) median household income from 2014 to 2015. But still slightly below the 2000 and 2007 levels. But those were both unsustainable unstable bubble economies.

The poverty rate fell from 14.7% to 13.5%.

More at this excellent report (excellent except for one flaw -- they don't say that the median household incomd figures they cite are inflation-adjusted, but they are)
` `http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/13/news/economy/median-income-census

For more up-to-date figures of real median household income (updated monthly), see Sentier Research's report:
` `http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Median-Household-Income-Update.php
See the "{#} Median Household Income" section below for more on this.

# https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/us-income-inequality-grows-to-its-highest-level-in-50-years/ar-AAHRBWn?ocid=HPCOMMDHP15
# https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-inequality.html
# https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142373073

The gap between the haves and have-nots in the United States grew last year to its highest level in more than 50 years of tracking income inequality, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Thursday (9/26/19).

The nation's Gini Index, which measures income inequality, has been rising steadily over the past five decades. The Gini Index grew from 0.482 in 2017 to 0.485 last year, according to the bureau's one-year American Community Survey data. The Gini Index is on a scale of 0 to 1; a score of "0'' indicates perfect equality, while a score of 1 indicates perfect inequality, where one household has all the income.

A big factor in the increase in inequality has to do with two large population groups on either end of the economic spectrum, according to Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida. On one side, at the peak of their earnings, are baby boomers who are nearing retirement, if they haven't already retired. On the other side are millennials and Gen Zers, who are in the early stages of their work life and have lower salaries, Snaith said.

The reason the headline says 50 years is that the Census Bureau only began studying inequality in 1967, according to the Washington Post. And I haven't found any Census Bureau data that goes back beyond 1967 --Progree

From another source: Graph of Gini: 1913-2009:

In 2018 the Gini ratio was 0.485 -- according to the MSN article and Census Bureau Table H-4 -- which is about 5/8 of the distance between the 0.46 and 0.50 lines

Table H-4. Gini Ratios for Households, by Race and Hispanic Origin of Householder
Gini Ratios for Households, by Race and Hispanic Origin of Householder
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-series/historical-income-households/h04.xls

# The bottom half of families have recently regained the wealth they lost in the 2007-2009 recession, but still have 32% less wealth, adjusted for inflation, than in 2003 (in other words, they are finally about break-even compared to 2007, but are still behind 32% compared to 2003, after adjusting for inflation)

# In contrast, The top 1% of households by wealth -- their wealth is up 72% "since the recession" (meaning since 2009), and more than double since 2003,after adjusting for inflation.

and that includes pension plans, 401(k) accounts and individual retirement accounts (IRAs) as well as trust funds, mutual funds and college savings programs like 529 plans. That means 90% of American households own the remaining 16% of all stock
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-biggest-bull-market-ever-yet-disaster-looms-for-millions-of-retirees-2019-07-18
https://www.nber.org/papers/w24085.pdf

http://www.businessinsider.com/income-and-wealth-inequality-charts-2014-11?op=1

FRED's Gini Ratio, last 40 years

Inequality Gini Ratio by county, map of U.S.

Gini Indexes of OECD countires, compared (we're 4th worst after Chile, Mexico, and Turkey)

Top 10% income share -- with and without capital gains, 1917-2012

Income share of top 10% to 5%, top 5% to 1%, and top 1%

Top 0.01% income share -- with and without capital gains, 1913-2012

Percent change in real income, 1980-2012 top 0.01% and bottom 90%

Top 0.1% wealth share in the U.S., 1913-2012

Savings rate by wealth class -- top 1%, top 10 to 1%, and bottom 90%, 1917 - 2012

Inequality (percent of wealth owned): "Estimated" - how bad people think it is, vs. "Ideal" - what they think it should be, vs. "Actual" - how bad it actually is

Intergenerational mobility - a couple of charts

Lane Kenworthy, using data from the Congressional Budget Office
http://lanekenworthy.net/2010/07/20/the-best-inequality-graph-updated/
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/collections.cfm?collect=13

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/a-giant-statistical-round-up-of-the-income-inequality-crisis-in-16-charts/266074/

According to the beginning of the article, "it is an annotated slide show, culled from the amazing 2012 edition of the State of Working America ( http://stateofworkingamerica.org/ ) from EPI ( http://www.epi.org/ )."
By the way, it isn't a slide show in the sense that you have to click one chart at a time. No, it's all on one page, one after the other with a little bit of annotation before each chart on what it means. Good I say.

Just as a sample, and for a little color and imagery, here is one of the 16 charts,

Most of the incomes in the following sections are adjusted for inflation, and I make it clear which are and aren't. Still, it is useful to also see what the consumer price index is doing.

Latest CPI summary http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

CPI-U - Consumer Price Index - All Urban Consumers - Note: the CPI-U is "the CPI"

Consumer prices front page, index: http://www.bls.gov/cpi/

CPI-U, Seasonally Adjusted: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0&output_view=pct_1mth

To see the index values as well as the 1-month changes: at the upper right of the page, click the "More Formatting Options" link, and then in the data box at the top far left side, click the "Original Data Value" checkbox. Leave the "1-Month Percent Change" box checked as well. That way you will get a page with both series.
News release: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
ALL CPI data series: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/data.htm
One Screen data tool for CPI-U: https://data.bls.gov/PDQWeb/cu

Core CPI-U, Seasonally Adjusted: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0L1E&output_view=pct_1mth (this is the CPI-U stripped of food and energy. It's also "the Core CPI" )

Food at home: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SAF11

Gasoline prices and adjusted for inflation https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/gasoline-prices-adjusted-for-inflation/

Consumer Price Index Frequently Asked Questions https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm

Historical Inflation
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/historical-cpi-u-201710.pdf

CPI Inflation Calculator.com - has details on any particular year, e.g. the link below

https://cpiinflationcalculator.com/1981-cpi-inflation-united-states/
The high inflation rates on late 70's early 80's: 1978.6%, '79:11.3%, '80:13.5%, '81:10.3%, 82:6.2%, 83:3.2%

(Remember, Jimmy Carter was president in ALL of 1980 (he became president Jan. 20, 1981), so if you're trying to make "progressive points" by comparing to the inflation rate of 1980, realize you're dinging Carter, not Reagan)

Inflation calculator for many items, www.in2013dollars.com, for example, how much has the price of electricity gone up since 1973? (Despite the URL's name, thankfully its not given in "2013 dollars", I don't know where that name came from)

https://www.in2013dollars.com/Electricity/price-inflation/1973-to-2022?amount=100
. . . Electricity price inflation from 1973 to 2022: $100 to $659.57, a 3.92%/year increase. The overall rate of inflation was 3.90%/year during that period, so electricity prices have only very slightly exceeded the rate of inflation since 1973

For convenience of reference, here are average wages of production and non-supervisory workers, where "real" means inflation-adjusted. These are updated by the BLS when the monthly CPI report comes out

Real Average Hourly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000032
Real Average Weekly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000031

In the below, "nominal" means just the simple ordinary dollar amount, i.e. *not* inflation adjusted. These are seasonally adjusted:

Nominal Average Hourly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000008
Nominal Average Weekly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000030

{#} Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers - CPI-W

CPI-W - CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (used to adjust the Social Security COLAs, and yes, like the CPI-U, it includes food and energy) https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CWUR0000SA0
News release (search the page for "CPI-W" ): https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
One-Screen search: https://www.bls.gov/help/one_screen/cw.htm
. . . https://data.bls.gov/PDQWeb/cw

ALL CPI data series: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/data.htm

{#} Consumer Price Index for Elderly - CPI-E

CPI-E- CPI for Elderly (research series for elderly consumers, 62 years and older
. . . Information about: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/research-series/r-cpi-e-home.htm
. . . I don't know of thee is a nifty data series like the data.bls.gov/timeseries ones used for so much other BLS data, but the data is available in an Excel spreadsheet: R-CPI-E, All items and eight major groups: Food, Housing, Apparel, Transportation, Medical Care, Recreation, Education and Communication, Other Goods and Services, December 1982-Present ( https://www.bls.gov/cpi/research-series/r-cpi-e-data.xlsx )
. . . R-CPI-E, relative importance, December 2020 ( https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/r-cpi-e-2020.xlsx )

{#} Producer Price Index - PPI

Latest PPI summary http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ppi.nr0.htm

Producer prices front page: http://www.bls.gov/ppi/

Producer Price Index (PPI), seasonally adjusted - from the BLS home page, also from bls.gov/ppi: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/WPSFD4?output_view=pct_1mth

"Core" Producer Price Index, seasonally adjusted - this is the one the media reports, I think -
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/WPSFD413?output_view=pct_1mth

{#} Median Household Income


Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2018, U.S. Census Bureau, 9/10/19
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/income-poverty.html

# Median household income: $63,179 in 2018, not statistically different than the 2017 inflation-adjusted income of $62,626.

# Between 2017 and 2018, the real median earnings of all workers increased 3.4% to $40,247. The 2018 real median earnings of men and women who worked full-time, year-round increased by 3.4% and 3.3%, respectively, between 2017 and 2018.

# Official powerty rate: 11.8%, 0.5 percentage points lower than in 2017, and lower than in 2007 - the year before the most recent recession.

# health insurance - the rate and number of people without health insurance increased from 7.9%, or 25.6 million, in 2017 to 8.5%, or 27.5 million, in 2018

The percentage of people with health insurance coverage for all or part of 2018 was 91.5%, lower than the rate in 2017 (92.1%).

Note also the Rick Newman article talks about some differences between the Census Bureau methodology and the Sentier Research methodology

March 2018, $61,227 (web page accessed 1/30/19 and 9/18/19).
The Sentier Research median household income data has restarted. Data is now available through March 2018, when the real median household income was at $61,227.
http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Median-Household-Income-Update.php == Morphed into ==> https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2018/05/02/real-median-household-income-reintroduction-march-at-61-227

Scroll down a bit on that page to see the graph (also shown just below):



Nominal (meaning not adjusted for inflation) median household income is at an all-time peak (see red line in the graph at the link).

But what matters is purchasing power, and that's where Real (meaning adjusted for inflation) median household comes in -- that's the blue line in the graph. Depressingly it is up just 1.8% (60,124 -> 61,227) from the year 2000 when the graph begins (and who knows how many years before that -- I'll have to find the data before 2000).

However, average household size has declined since 2000 -- from 2.62 in 2000 to 2.53 in 2018, a 3.4% decrease. So actually real median household income per household occupant increased by 5.5% from 2000 to 2018

60124/2.62 = 22,948 . . . 61227/2.53 = 24,200 . . . (24200/22948-1)*100% = 5.5%

See next section on average household size.

As for what the median household income is -- conceptually it is lining up all U.S. households sorted from the lowest household income to the highest household income, and then the one right in the middle of this is the median. (In actuality, it is produced by a survey of a sample which aims to produce the same result)

Consequences are that as the number and proportion of single person households has grown over the past several decades, that has exerted a downward distortion on both the median and the average household income.

Another consequence is that during worsening economic times, there is less household formation and increasing average household size, thus tending to increase the number of working age people per household (which would tend to increase median and average household income except that unemployment also goes up in bad economic times).

And the reverse effects occur during improving economic times (such as the last 4 years): less unemployment (good for average and median household income) but more household formation and decreasing household sizes (exerting downward pressure on average and median household income).

I did Google this and the source of the statistic is the Census Bureau, but it would take hours to find the page that explains the methodology. Maybe somebody will provide the link -- this page is a work in progress.

Anyway, I tend not to think too much of household median income because it is distorted by changes in household sizes.

Another problem is comparing today's median household income to January 2000 -- which was very near the height of the artificial unsustainable dot-com bubble. If we averaged real median household income from say 2002 to 2008, we'd find that today's real median household income is higher than that 2002-2008 average. And today's real median household income per occupant is considerably higher than the 2002-2008 average.

Sentier's Household Income Index (it's inflation adjusted): November 2018: 104.3 (January 2000 = 100.0)

Source: http://sentierresearch.com/HouseholdIncomeIndex.html

Our household income index permits monthly tracking of median annual household income before taxes. The index has been computed monthly beginning in January 2000. The base index value for January 2000 is 100.0. Each month the latest estimate of median household income is adjusted to reflect changes in prices since January 2000 and then seasonally adjusted to account for seasonal variations in the way households report their income in the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS). The median annual household income for each month is divided by the March 2000 median to compute the index.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all urban consumers is used make adjustment for changes in prices where noted in the tables and text of the report.

It has a link at the top: "View Latest Chart for the Sentier Household Income Index" -- the red line is the median household income index and remember that it is inflation-adjusted.

Additional Reading from the Sentier website (below links from the http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Median-Household-Income-Update.php page)

# U.S. Household Incomes: A 49-Year Perspective https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Income-Distribution.php

# U.S. Median Household Incomes by Age Bracket https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Incomes-by-Age-Brackets.php

# Monthly Disposable Income https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/DPI-Monthly-Update

Real Median Household Income, FRED, 1984-present
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Note to myself: Dig for real median household income going back to 1979 or better yet, 1973. I haven't tried yet.
See next section for average household sizes. Note the declining trend. Thus if real median household income is flat, while average household size has declined, then we are better off on a per-person basis.

{#} Average Household Size
Average household size (some sample years):

1960: 3.33,

1973: 3.01, year of peak economy before the oil embargo, and is often compared to

1979: 2.78, year of another local economic peak that is very often compared to

1984: 2.71, year the Fred Data on real median household income begins

1992: 2.62, last year before Clinton I

2000: 2.62, Nice round number and year of the tech bubble peak (1999 was the same 2.62)

2007: 2.56,

2010: 2.59, the average household size peak of the post 2007 years,

2018: 2.53,

2019: 2.52

# Source of above for 1960 and every year from 1970 through 2019:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-households-in-the-us/

Notice that there was an uptick in household size between 2007 to 2010 from the economic peak to the economic trough as people lost their homes and economic conditions forced more people to share quarters. Also notice that the decline in household size resumed, and at 2019 it is at a multi-decade (perhaps all-time) low.

{#} Minimum Wage

The minimum wage was stuck at $5.15 from 9/1/97 through 7/23/07.

The 2007 amendments increased the minimum wage to $5.85 per hour effective July 24, 2007; $6.55 per hour effective July 24, 2008; and $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009 where it is still at today (as of 2/2/19 and counting)

https://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/coverage.htm

The below Wikipedia page has more of the history, and the purchasing power of the minimum wage (see also the graphic on the right side of the page in the Historical Trend section)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States


{#} BLS Median Weekly Earnings of Full-Time Workers

I haven't found all the timeseries codes yet (haven't tried the bag of tricks in poliC yet).
But this seems to be the key: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswktabs.htm


One Screen Java Series Finder Thing - Weekly and Hourly Earnings Data from the Current Population Survey
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/querytool.jsp?survey=le

BLS News Release: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.nr0.htm
OR http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2014/ted_20141028.htm
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2013/ted_20131203.htm

CPS Tables: http://www.bls.gov/cps/tables.htm

Medians (and other quantiles) of weekly earnings. The median (or upper limit of the second quartile) is the midpoint in a given earnings distribution, with half of workers having earnings above the median and the other half having earnings below the median. - Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.tn.htm

Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by selected characteristics
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat37.htm

Median weekly earnings of part-time wage and salary workers by selected characteristics
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat38.htm

Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by detailed occupation and sex (HTML) (PDF)
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat39.htm

Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by union affiliation and selected characteristics
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat41.htm

Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by union affiliation, occupation, and industry
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat43.htm

Time Series - Full Time, wage and salary workers, age 16+, seasonally adjusted:

Number in thousands: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LES1254466800
Median usual weekly earnings - in current dollars: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LES1252881500

Median usual weekly earnings - in constant (1982-84) dollars (i.e. inflation-adjusted): http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LES1252881600

Time Series - Part Time, wage and salary workers, age 16+, not seasonally adjusted:

Number in thousands: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LEU0264466800
Median usual weekly earnings - in current dollars: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LEU0262881500

Median usual weekly earnings for part-time workers - in constant (1982-84) dollars (i.e. inflation-adjusted): -- I can't find, I tried changing the "1500" in the above URL to "1600" following the pattern of the full-time workers one above ("1500" is current dollars while "1600" is constant dollars), but that didn't work. Did a number of searches. Have also found a number of tables and data-selectors which include inflation-adjusted numbers for full-time workers but not for part-time workers -- thus I'm pretty much certain that the BLS does not have an inflation-adjusted series or numbers for part-time workers anywhere [note to myself: see the searches and evidence at the bottom of the offline version of this page in a2.d]

These both say that CPI-U is used for determining the constant 1982-1984 dollars -- https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.nr0.htm and this: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng_01172019.htm .
For CPI-U, Try: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUUR0000SA0

{#} BLS Occupational Employment and Wages Summary - Mean and Median Hourly Wages of Hundreds of Occupations

http://www.bls.gov/oes

Surprisingly, as of 2/2/19, the latest is May 2017.

For all 142,549,250 employed (May 2017), the mean hourly wage was $24.34 and the median hourly wage was $18.12

(doesn't say anything about if these are all full-time or not)

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.nr0.htm

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t01.htm

2 examples:
# Dental hygienist -- both mean and median is just short of $36/hour (May 2017)
# Tax preparers - mean: 22.64 median: 18.62 $/hour (May 2017)

{#} BLS figures on average hourly earnings


Production and Non-Supervisory Employees, seasonally adjusted

I favor this measure because it does not include supervisors, managers, CEOs, business owners, and so on, whose very high salaries, in some cases, may otherwise distort the overall average skyward. So this production and non-supervisory employees data series is closer to the typical working person.

In the below, "real" means inflation-adjusted, so that it indicates its purchasing power. These are seasonally adjusted:

Real Hourly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000032
Real Weekly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000031

BLS's monthly summary of real earnings: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm



More on the above: http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Employment-Wages-and-Hours-since-1964.php

In the below, "nominal" means just the simple ordinary dollar amount, i.e. *not* inflation adjusted. These are seasonally adjusted:

Nominal Hourly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000008
Nominal Weekly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000030


All Private Employees, seasonally adjusted

Real Hourly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000013
Real Weekly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000012

Nominal Hourly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000003
Nominal Weekly - http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000011

{#} Social Security Admin on Median and Average Annual Wage

In 2017: Annual Median: $31,561, Annual Average: $48,252

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html

Be sure to scroll down past the table to see the graph -- in particular how the average wage has been growing faster than the median wage (blue line and red line respectively -- see wage scale on left vertical axis) -- while the ratio of the median wage to the average wage has been falling -- see the red diamonds and the percentage scale on the right vertical axis. This is an indicator of growing inequality.

This shows the actual frequency distribution and cumulative frequency distribution of wages aka net compensation:

https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2017 (latest as of 2/2/19)

What net compensation is:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/netcomp.html

In keeping with the legal term "national average wage index," we often loosely refer to the basis for the index as average wages. To be more precise, however, the index is based on compensation (wages, tips, and the like) subject to Federal income taxes, as reported by employers on Form W-2.

Beginning with the AWI for 1991, compensation includes contributions to deferred compensation plans, but excludes certain distributions from plans where the distributions are included in the reported compensation subject to income taxes. We call the result of including contributions, and excluding certain distributions, net compensation.

(It doesn't include benefits like health, contributions to 401 k's or pension plans, vacation, and so on that I can see -Progree)

{#} Personal Income (BEA, Commerce Dept), also Consumer Spending and PCE inflation

Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce
https://www.bea.gov/data/income-saving/personal-income
Then click on the "Current Release" button
Personal Income: http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/pi/pinewsrelease.htm

Also has breakdowns: wages and salaries (private, government, overall), Employee contributions for employee pension and insurance funds, and for social insurance, proprietors' income, rental income, personal income receipts on assets (personal interest income plus personal dividend income), but unfortunately, at least in the pinewrelease.htm, all the breakdowns in this paragraph are in $billions of dollars, with no indication of percentage changes. # search: personal spending

# FRED's Real Personal Income: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RPI
# FRED's Real personal income excluding current transfer receipts (W875RX1) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W875RX1

# What to know about personal income and savings - BEA.gov
      https://www.bea.gov/resources/learning-center/what-to-know-income-saving

To be continued.

{#} That one that comes with the quarterly productivity report (BLS)

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm
http://stats.bls.gov/lpc/home.htm

To be continued. [includes hourly compensation and unit labor costs]

{#} That one that comes with the Employment Cost Index (BLS)

# http://www.bls.gov/news.release/eci.nr0.htm
# ECI website - https://www.bls.gov/ect/
# http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/eci.pdf - lots of graphs
# http://stats.bls.gov/ncs/ect/home.htm

This one has (a) Wages and Salaries, (b) Benefits (c) Compensation -- which is Wages and Salaries + Benefits

To be continued. [this is NOT the one that is affected by productivity -- I think that one is the unit labor costs that comes out with the productivity report ]

From: https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/us-wages-grew-fastest-pace-decades-2021-prices-grew-even-more

The BLS releases ECI statistics, showing compensation, wage, and benefit growth over the prior three months, four times a year. The ECI shows changes in wages and benefits in a manner that fixes the composition of the workforce. This is important, particularly when there are large changes in employment, because these data are not subject to the same distortions as the monthly average hourly earnings series, which can artificially be increased when low-wage workers lose their jobs and drop out of the sample (as happened in 2020) or artificially be decreased when these same workers are hired back (as happened in 2021) [1].

By fixing workforce composition, the ECI provides a more accurate picture of what is actually happening to wages.

[1] The Pandemic’s Effect on Measured Wage Growth, The WHite House, 4/19/21
https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/04/19/the-pandemics-effect-on-measured-wage-growth/

Note to self: more: 22.AAX

{#} Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (BLS)

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm

To get an idea what this is about, here is the first 2 paragraphs of the one released on March 10, 2016:

Employer costs for employee compensation for civilian workers averaged $33.58 per hour worked in December 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries averaged
$23.06 per hour worked and accounted for 68.7 percent of these costs, while benefits averaged $10.52
and accounted for the remaining 31.3 percent. Total employer compensation costs for private industry
workers averaged $31.70 per hour worked in December 2015.

Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC), a product of the National Compensation Survey,
measures employer costs for wages and salaries, and employee benefits for nonfarm private and state and local government workers.

{#} Consumer Confidence, Sentiment

Consumer Confidence Index - The Conference Board
https://www.conference-board.org/topics/consumer-confidence

Index: 1985=100, (1985 was considered a good year, 3 years past the 1980-1982 double-dip recession)

Consumer Sentiment Index - The University of Michigan

http://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/

FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UMCSENT

{#} Prime Rate, Prime Interest Rate

http://www.fedprimerate.com/prime_rate_history-monthly.htm

Prime Rate: December of: 1979: 15.30%, 1980: 20.35%, 1981: 15.75%, 1982: 11.85%, 1983:11.00%,
Remember if you are making "progressive points", don't ballyhoo the 1980 prime rate -- Jimmy Carter was president for all of 1980.

{#} Federal Funds Rate -- this is the big news-making interest rate that the Federal Reserve sets

# Before 12/6/08 it was one number:

# 9/27/82 to 12/15/08: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFEDTAR
It was 6.50% pre-dot-com crash and 5.25% pre-housing bubble crash

# After 12/15/08 it is a range. As of 7/19/22 and counting, the upper limit of the range is always 0.25 percentage points above the lower limit of the range, but I don't think that's fixed in stone:

# Fed Funds Rate Lower Limit (since 12/15/08): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFEDTARL
# Fed Funds Rate Upper Limit (since 12/15/08): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFEDTARU

# Macrotrends: https://www.macrotrends.net/2015/fed-funds-rate-historical-chart
. . . Imgur of it (made mid 2022): https://imgur.com/UeNGymT

{#} Treasury Interest Rates

10 Year Treasury - Market Yield on U.S. Treasury Securities at 10-Year Constant Maturity, Quoted on an Investment Basis (DGS10) (FRED)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DGS10

US Treasury Yield Curve (you can set the date)
https://www.ustreasuryyieldcurve.com/

Select interest rates -- scroll to the Treasury section
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/

10-year Treasury Constant Maturity Minus 2-Year Treasury Constant Maturity (FRED)
(This has gone negative before every recession. But not every negative occurance has preceded a recession. If I got that right)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y

Latest quote and recent history graphs of individual treasuries
    1mo Treasury https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US1m
    3mo Treasury https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US3m
    2Y Treasury https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US2Y
    5Y Treasury https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US5Y
    10Y Treasury https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US10Y
    20Y Treasury https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US20y
    30Y Treasury https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US30y

Yahoo Finance symbols for Treasury yields : 3mo: ^IRX, 5y: ^FVX, 10y: ^TNX, 30y: ^TYX (None for 2y)
https://finance.yahoo.com

Marginally attached workers are those who want a job and are available for work, and looked in past 12 months but not in past 4 weeks) - Table A-16 http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t16.htm - 1.950 million, down by 23,000 from a year ago (not seas adj)

Discouraged workers are a subset of marginally attached workers. They want and are available for work, and looked in past 12 months but not in past 4 weeks. Additionally, unlike some marginally attached workers, they said they didn't look for work because they don't think jobs are available for them - Table A-16 http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t16.htm - 591,000, down by 77,000 from a year ago (not seas adj)

Other persons marginally attached to the labor force - it’s the other subset of marginally attached workers. It is all marginally attached workers except for Discouraged workers. Includes those who did not actively look for work in the prior 4 weeks for such reasons as school or family responsibilities, ill health, and transportation problems, as well as a number for whom reason for nonparticipation was not determined. - Table A-16 http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t16.htm -

"They don't count the long-term unemployed in the unemployment rate"

"People who run out of unemployment insurance benefits are not counted as unemployed in the unemployment rate statistics."

"Wages are about the same as 30 years ago, meanwhile the cost of living has gone way up"