Here's what really happened to income in the Clinton 90s.

[UglyGreed]

https://twitter.com/webconnoisseur/status/706797897690394624

[Mufaddal]

1. The Clinton economy was a strange thing for her to bring up

If you are working class, the Clinton economy sucked. For her to say, "look at all the new jobs that were created in the 90s" just showed how out of touch she is now and was then. Most of those jobs were part-time and in the service industry. We're talking minimum wage here. Every 2 of those jobs were probably held by 1 person because you had to have at least that many of them to make ends almost meet. She might as well have talked about reductions in number of people receiving welfare--it would have been just as dishonest.

[asuhornets]

13. The Clinton economy

in the 90's did not suck. 23million jobs, period

[basselope]

17. No.. comma...

23 million jobs that were part of the .com bubble inflated by the DE-REGULATION of the rules for raising capital.

Those were basically 23 million TEMP jobs.

To please, sell the "Clinton Economy" to someone else.

[Mufaddal]

21. ^^^ This.

[Ferd Berfel]

22. agree

[Avalux]

2. I think people are forgettting junk bonds, corp takeovers and gutting of small businesses.

The march to oligarchy got a huge helping hand thanks to Bill.

[thereismore]

3. Bush's was has been great for the 1%. nt

[randome]

4. IT was really taking off. Consulting positions were widely available.

I know I'm only offering anecdotal evidence but it seemed like me and everyone around me were suddenly highly-in-demand IT consultants and up was the only direction for us.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)[/center][/font][hr]

[Armstead]

6. Consulting positions were another buzzword for eliminating actual jobs

and replacing them with "consultants' with no benefits, hunger and scrambling wuith otehr "consultants" for work...and eventually many sending of those "consulting" jobs overseas.

[randome]

19. I've had 16 IT positions since 1989.

Three were as an employee, the rest were contracting.

The first two or three were menial jobs, mostly data entry. So long as you keep your resume up and stay mobile, there is no shortage of work even now.

I'm not saying it's paradise or anything, some jobs ended rather abruptly, leaving me in a panic, but overall...
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)[/center][/font][hr]

[denverbill]

7. That's true, but it was more because of Y2K than any economic policies.

Every company in the world was trying to get their systems in order for Y2K.

And not only Y2K. The internet didn't even really exist to most people prior to the early 90's.

[angstlessk]

16. If no one mentioned it, I was going to. Y2K, like you said, was a boom for jobs

[whatthehey]

5. They went up at all income levels yes

I don't particularly care if other people get more than I do as long as there is universal improvement, as there was and as the chart shows.

[BernieforPres2016]

8. Then you must have loved the GWB administration

Those lower lines are going up slightly during that era as well. Of course, after the financial bubbles popped, the minimal gains of the lower income categories during the Clinton and GWB administrations were wiped out.

[whatthehey]

9. Well median income is only one datum

Clinton halved unemployment too. GWB doubled it. Clinton's admin saw 23 million more jobs. GWB's... didn't, by a long shot. Not to mention the only budget surplus in the last half century compared to huge deficits even before counting the off-the-books war.

And I'm always told on DU that it's only fatcats who are heavily invested in financial markets, which incidentally also rocketed up under Clinton and collapsed under GWB.

So, since I'm capable of analyzing more than one metric I think it's fair to say I'm a much bigger fan of Clinton's economic stewardship then GWB's for several solid reasons, despite your rather strained, and strange, assumptions to the contrary.

So your turn. Why do you care how much more somebody else makes?

[auntpurl]

14. Good post. I agree. nt

[BernieforPres2016]

20. I don't if they make it honestly

But I'm not naive enough to think CEO compensation is the product of a "free market" or that a lot of the income gains by the top 0.1% don't come from payoffs on their investments in politicians (writing provisions into the tax code, getting mergers waved through, etc.).

[dsc]

18. after inflation incomes went down, which is the opposite of up

during the Bush admin.

[AzDar]

10. K & R

[Jitter65]

11. But they all went up. eom

[Cheese Sandwich]

12. Everybody increased a little, but there was a massive shift of power to the top 1%

Sounds about right.

Money is social power and you can can clearly see it in the percentage of wealth controlled by the top 1%.

[senz]

15. They took Reaganomics to new heights

as the chart shows.