Yippee. Record growth and low unemployment. Too bad they were only good times for a few. With consumers responsible for 70% of the US economy, who will be consuming when there's no money left over to consume? Will the Democrats stand up to the lame duck and unpopular president or will they roll over, again? We are in a different economic era but Washington hasn't seemed to catch up and act, though everyone in the working world is painfully aware of the new truth. Barbara Ehrenreich is really spot on.
But hellooo, we've had brisk growth for the past few years, as the president has tirelessly reminded us, only without those promised increases in personal income, at least not for the poor and the middle class. According to a study just released by the Economic Policy Institute, real wages actually fell last year. Growth, some of the economists are conceding in perplexity, has been "decoupled" from widely shared prosperity.
