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Re: faux conservatism: leave every family behind
No, this is not the same data. The data I referred to apppeared in either
theNYT or WP or WSJin the last week or so. I've been travelling to OR, WA
and OK and didn't make careful note of it.
----- Original Message -----
From: <MONICALUCIDO@comcast.net>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 7:21 PM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] faux conservatism: leave every family behind
Dr. Bracey,
I seem to have remembered a broadcast of the Aspen Institute, where the
head honcho of the Center for American Progress stated that during the
early to late nineties U.S. companies made about a 15% overall profit
growth, with American wages also increasing by 15% to match. He then said
that during 2000-2007, companies once again made about a 15% growth.
However, he said that wages only increased by 2% suring that same time
period, suggesting that corporations were not passing on their success to
American workers. Is this the same information that you are referring to?
The show was on CSPAN during the summer.
Thanks,
Joe Lucido
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>
I haven't seen this report, but I'm suspicious of anything that issues
from
an administration that permits 24-year-old political appointees to censor
and rewrite reports from the nation's leading authority on global
warming.
About the same time that this report appeared, there was an article
indicating that real wages had dropped 12% over some period--don't recall
how long. The drop was not seen in family income figures, though,
because
of the ever increasing dependence on two workers perfamily.
JB
----- Original Message -----
From: <aburke5054@aol.com>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 10:51 AM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] faux conservatism: leave every family behind
> The Pew report says ...
>
> "Two out of three Americans have higher incomes than their parents,
> while
> one third are falling behind. The current generation of adults is
> better
> off than the previous one, because of real income growth..." It also
> says
> that most children born to parents in the lowest rung of income are in
> a
> higher category as adults. The report suggests uneven progress for
> African-Americans and does not mention Hispanic and Latino Americans at
> all, but all in all the the report shows a rising tide. The
> interpretation that every family is falling behind is simply unfounded,
> as
> is much of what appears on ARN.
>
> Art
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: qcao009@aol.com
> To: arn-l@interversity.org
> Sent: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:25 am
> Subject: [arn-l] faux conservatism: leave every family behind
> i
>
> The GOP's Pocketbook Issue
>
> By Michael Gerson
> Wednesday, November 14, 2007; A19
>
>
>
>
> Republicans have spent years wondering when Americans will finally wake
> up
> and
> realize they are actually happy about the state of the economy.
>
> A slowdown may now be in the offing, but that does not explain why the
> credit
> has never rolled in for six years of uninterrupted economic growth or
> the
> creation of more than 8 million jobs since August 2003. Has an
> exhausting
> war
> overwhelmed the upbeat economic news? Has the public just been in a
> sour
> mood
> this decade?
>
> A series of scrupulously bipartisan new studies by the Economic
> Mobility
> Project
> of the Pew Charitable Trusts hints at an answer -- and the explanation
> is
> not a
> funk but a fact. Even in a growing economy, only about a third of
> Americans can
> be considered upwardly mobile -- meaning they will end up with more
> inflation-adjusted income and a higher relative economic standing than
> did
> their
> parents. The rest are maintaining their standing or falling behind;
> about
> one-third slip down the income scale over the course of a generation.
>
> When specific groups are considered, the news is even more unsettling.
> Men
> in
> their 30s have experienced a sustained slide in their
> inflation-adjusted
> incomes, which fell by 12 percent between 1974 and 2004.
>
> And most shocking of all: About 45 percent of middle-income African
> American
> children end up falling to the bottom of the income scale over a
> generation,
> compared with 16 percent of white children -- meaning that even solidly
> middle-class African American families lead fragile economic lives.
>
> According to the Pew studies, America has less upward economic mobility
> than
> Denmark, Canada or Finland. "In America, more than other countries,"
> says
> project director John Morton, "the circumstances of your birth have
> more
> to say
> about where you end up than how we tend to think of ourselves."
>
> Over the decades, families have gradually adapted to these economic
> trends. They
> often have added a second income -- the proportion of married women who
> are in
> the workforce has gone from 23 percent in 1950 to 70 percent today. And
> families
> have become smaller, spreading their resources among fewer children in
> need of
> food, clothing and cellphones.
>
> But in other ways, Americans have not responded very well to the
> incentives of
> the new economic world.
>
> A four-year college degree is now necessary just to tread economic
> water,
> and
> only a professional or graduate degree reliably ensures wage growth.
> But
> while
> college enrollment for men is up, graduation rates have recently
> declined.
>
> And even though African American families "need more than ever to have
> two
> incomes," says Morton, "we are seeing a decline in the number of
> two-income
> families." Low marriage rates contribute to low incomes.
>
> These trends make a certain amount of long-term economic discontent
> perfectly
> rational. They also represent a challenge to conservative ideology.
> Conservatives rightly reject a leveling equality as a social goal,
> which
> can
> only be imposed by coercion at a tremendous cost to human liberty and
> human
> flourishing. But in the absence of economic equality, economic mobility
> becomes
> an essential moral commitment. When a society has neither equality nor
> mobility,
> it is an aristocracy. Conservatism accepts inequality as an economic
> fact
> of
> life -- but it cannot accept the existence of a class-ridden society
> where
> inequality is hereditary and permanent.
>
> There are large reasons for these economic trends that have little to
> do
> with
> the economic policies of any single administration. Global competition
> has
> deprived America of many lower-skill, higher-paying manufacturing jobs.
> Rising
> powers such as China and India are preparing industriously to compete
> with
> Americans for higher-skill, high-tech jobs as well. No matter who is
> elected the
> next president, American workers will need to be highly educated,
> willing
> to
> change jobs often and prepared to move where new jobs emerge.
>
> Republicans will not solve this problem, but they need at least to
> address
> it.
> And this requires a message beyond lower taxes and spending restraint.
> The
> candidates will need creative proposals to reform a health-care system
> that is a
> drag on entrepreneurship; to make a college education more affordable;
> to
> encourage savings, ownership and financial literacy, which make
> economic
> gains
> less tenuous; even to encourage economic mobility in the context of
> stronger
> families.
>
> Republican presidential candidates often talk of a return to
> Reaganism --
> and,
> in one sense, it is needed. Ronald Reagan won elections by responding
> forcefully
> to the economic challenges of his time -- inflation and 70 percent tax
> rates.
> Republicans need to show the same capacity to speak to the largest
> economic
> challenge of our moment -- the recovery of economic mobility.
>
> Michael Gerson is the author of "Heroic Conservatism." His e-mail
> address
> ismichaelgerson@cfr.org.
>
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