It may not be a recession, but our economy is in shambles. It turns out, all that money that was supposed to trickle down for over 40 years didn’t. Apparently if you let the rich keep their money, they do. Who woulda fuckin thought.
What are we gonna do about it? Bitch on the internet, cause if we even got a general strike going, we would just be slaughtered selectively and demonized universally until the protest dies down. All because we would dare to ask for our fair share.
We are not in a recession. The problems with wage stagnation are not some temporary hiccup in the economy. It is a systemic problem. Stop conflating the two, complaining that a macroeconomic term with a very specific meaning isn’t defined the way you want it to be. Stop expecting the problem to heal itself if the fed lowers rates or taxes get nudged up or down or whatever. We know how to fix wage stagnation because we have done it before. Regulation. Labor protections. Minimum wage increases. Wage stagnation occurs in the absence of these things, and they can only be done by Congress.
Summary: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during the Biden administration has supported workers’ rights to form unions and engage in collective bargaining, standing in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s anti-worker record.
Key findings
President Biden has nominated experienced worker advocates and increased funding to the NLRB—the independent agency responsible for protecting private-sector workers’ organizing and bargaining rights. The Trump administration, however, appointed corporate lawyers to leadership positions and hollowed out the agency by not filling vacancies.
President Biden’s appointees have advanced the NLRB’s mission by addressing issues such as employee status under the law, the scope of concerted activity protected by the law, the representation process, and remedies for violations of the law.
The Biden NLRB has made significant progress in undoing the damage inflicted by the Trump administration’s appointees and in restoring workers’ rights, but more remains to be done.
Structural weaknesses in the law continue to be an obstacle to workers seeking to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining.
Total compensation packages including benefits derived from speaking engagements, endorsements, discounts for family members, and insider trading. Have multiple independent auditing agencies produce numbers and make it a ten year federal offense prison sentence to take a bribe for determining it.
American economic output is not in a recession, this is important for a lot of things but does not solve domestic issues with the economy. The majority of US workers are seeing a massive economic recession in terms of wages vs costs of living. But the distinction is really important because it proves that most if not practically all of our hardships are fuelled simply by greed of the owning class.
Boy trickle down economics sure is looking GREAT, huh?? Share holder success is better than ever, now if we could just do a thing about those pesky peasants… They better not go after poverty assistance or work benefits, that comes out of our taxes, can’t have our portfolio drop a fraction of a percent, can we?? Yep we’ll just exploit the masses until there’s nothing left and then… Uh…
The article defers to NBER but then says they are purposely excluding inflation and the higher cost of living from their criteria. Call it whatever you want, but if you’re going to use a definition most people don’t use to pretend there isn’t a problem you’re fucked.
More than half of Americans — 56% — mistakenly believe the U.S. is currently in a recession…That’s not the case…The U.S. economy, as measured by GDP, is growing.
I think it shows that GDP is not necessarily a very good measure of how an economy, or society, is doing. GDP can go up for reasons that don’t really have anything to do with the lives of average people improving in any meaningful way. Plus, the rate of growth in Q1 was, what, like 1.5%? That’s very modest growth. The economy is not exactly roaring.
So GDP is growing and we’re not in a recession, but that doesn’t mean the economy is “good” or “strong,” necessarily. It takes much more to determine the strength of the economy than just looking at GDP figures.
That’s because Americans keep being told “but we’re not in a recession” in response to complaints about low wages and high prices. No one gives a fuck what the stock market is doing if we can’t afford to own any. We don’t care that “job numbers are up” when none of them pay enough to keep up with doubled grocery costs in the last 3 years. And don’t even start on “CPI figures” that are waved in our faces as if that shit even comes close to measuring the real inflation that real people are paying for on a daily basis. It’s so understated it might as well exist in a parallel universe.
The reason this ends up blowing back on Democrats is they very much want the narrative to be “see guys everything is fine elect Biden again” but everything is very much not fine for the average Joe and so that narrative is irritating. Of course, Biden got handed a shit sandwich by the previous moron whose choices like absurdly low interest rates and PPP giveaways kick-started the inflation that has characterized Biden’s term, but that is lost on many voters. Dems need to directly address voter frustration and stop bandying useless figures like stocks and job market and CPI about. When I see prices go back down at the grocery store because the administration shit down the throats of companies for making excess profits, then I’ll credit Biden with saving us economically. Til then, it’s just noise.
Prices almost never go down. Biden has had years in office, it just keeps getting worse. We need a $20 minimum wage just to barely meet living wage standards, and $30 in major cities but Biden did help a couple hundred union workers so he’s helping the common man, right?
As the daily show bit pointed out, the type of people who actually reply to these surveys gives very skewed results. I never respond to any of those and doubt any of you all do either.
The first problem is that one group is talking about one thing and another group is talking about another thing but they both call it the same thing.
Then when the normal American who believes we’re in a recession is told we’re not in a recession, they look at their bank accounts and resent being told they don’t know what they’re talking about. Resentment breeds a defensive stance and isolationism.
So many people are told they don’t know what they’re talking about these days. Meanwhile, fringe organizations (or what used to be fringe) are happy to comfort those who’ve been told they’re idiots.
This isn’t a political aisle or philosophical issue. This is about general intelligence. This is about taking your face out of your screen and looking up and around your environment - or, seeing the forrest for the trees. You may not give a crap about anything other than your wallet but a veiled perspective is going to warp your reality.
There’s a lot to criticize in politics / everything today. It would be nice if people were using facts to inform their criticism. It would be nice if people weren’t getting their facts from social media and what amounts to today’s version of the check out aisle tabloids.
I’ve been out of work for seven weeks with no relief in sight. But I’ve been watching my industry laying off tens of thousands of people for months. I’m not surprised in the least to find myself in this situation. Meanwhile, I’ve also seen unions winning big for the last couple of years.
I’m personally doing poorly, but overall things are looking up and my turn will come around again before long. I just have to wait for things to return to normal after a bubble pop.
The layoff was due to the college I worked at going under and closing. The vast majority of coworkers in my circle are still unemployed after all this time.
People act like its so easy to get a job, but it seems impossible in rural America especially.
The solution just can’t possibly be everyone working in food or labor.
The same people who are in this thread saying that everything’s great because 60% of the people who responded to the survey say their conditions have improved.
Facts: workforce participation rate never recovered from 2007, the cost of medical insurance/tuition/housing have all outpaced wage growth of all but the wealthiest people, meanwhile the earning ratio between the lowest paid and high paid workers have exploded.
You can call me any nasty name you want but we are in a recession. When I start seeing those numbers I listed change is when I will stop saying that.
Thank you for perfectly illustrating my point. We are NOT in a recession. I don’t know the correct terminology to describe the facts you’ve laid out but “recession” is not it.
Pretty sure I used the correct word. If economists need a safe space away from it I am sure their banker friends can pay someone else to build it for them, you know with my money.
You’re wrong and ignoring everything you’ve been told to rationalize your feelings and direct your resentment. You don’t get to re-define words because you’re upset.
The problem is that you’re angry at the wrong thing. As I said, there’s a lot to complain about and it would be nice if people knew what it was they were complaining about. Like, you’re yelling at Netflix because you don’t like that HBO is now called MAX.
No you are wrong. You and your economists friends took a word that had a well known meaning and redefined it to get the result that they wanted. Then have the audacity to demand that we all use the definition they created. They can all go and fuck themselves for all I care.
Recession: noun, bad shit happening to poor people for a while.
I get it in a way. They read 1984 and decided “hey this is double plus good way of getting what I want. Rather than deal with the real universe I can just redefine words and declare everyone who disagrees a heretic”. Wealthy = scarcity, peace = war, slavery = freedom, and recession = economic boom.
It is so so much easier to just attack people compared to solving issues. I can’t wait until the day when your economists friends decide to redefine climate change as normal.
K. You’re just delusional. Again, thank you for very perfectly illustrating my point.
You’re even doing the defensive thing I described when I’m on your side and agreeing with your frustration.
Dude. You are pointing at the truth as established by linguists and experts in their field and saying it’s a lie. You are delusional.
Delusional: characterized by or holding false beliefs or judgments about external reality that are held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.
I’m not sure how else to express this again. Everything you are claiming is factual and troubling – aside from it being called or related to a recession. You have all the truth at your finger tips, but you are rejecting it. You are rejecting the truth because you are angry and lazy and find more comfort in your own limited beliefs than someone informing you that you are misinformed. The title of this post is “more than half of Americans think the US is in a recession, it’s not” and the article goes on to explain why IT IS NOT and you are rejecting it. You are presenting real world dinner table economics as somehow related to a recession when it is not and never has been.
Please, I sincerely want you to read into this rather than ignore it. Please read about what a recession is and how your real world economics is not directly related to it. I want you to understand you are barking up the wrong tree while right behind you the tree that’s relevant to your concerns is on fire. This is going to better inform you so you can support the right politicians and better understand the news (which you evidently are not reading anyway).
It’s upsetting to me that seemingly intelligent people are unable to live in reality. Living in a delusion means a lot of the judgements you make can impact others.
All you have to do is read some words. You could have learned something in a quarter of the time it’s taken you to respond to me. You could have spread facts to others like yourself. You’ve simply chosen to mad at one thing while blaming something else unrelated. All you have to do is direct your frustration towards the group and policies you’re mad at. It’s very simple.
You’re probably pretty smart but you’re really coming off here appearing quite ignorant and stubborn. I’m trying to help you remove the nearly transparent veil you’re having trouble seeing through. You’ve rejected a scientific mathematical measurement to make yourself feel better. There’s no defending that. Please swallow your pride and take five minutes to read and another five minutes to understand your confusion.
I know I am double plus ungood for not having blind unseeing faith in YOUR economist friends.
We are in a recession. When the facts, not opinions not definitions, change I will upgrade my assessment. In the meantime I plan to continue to live in the real world, not in the fake delusions of shills for big banks.
Despite the valiant effort, I think the user you’re responding to is adamant to not understand the premise of the article or what you’re trying get across.
Thank you. I really don’t understand how people feel it’s okay to reject math and the meanings of words. Moreover, their inability to accept they don’t know everything and instead live a life where they believe they’re more intelligent than facts and science is a little heartbreaking.
Personally, if I were going around using a word to describe something and someone told me I was incorrect and offered a source, I’d thank them for correcting and educating me.
I don't know why Biden would cause so much inflation in Canada, England, France, Germany, and just about every other country on earth, but he did. What a dick.
Obama is also at least 10% to blame. Vote Trump 2024 to teach the Dems a lesson.
We’d need to know the exact change being referenced. There are lots of couldas. Don’t get me wrong, I agree that it’s possible, but there’s not much to discuss without more info.
Unilaterally? No, nothing Trump couldn’t have changed with the stroke of a pen. Could Congress have? Sure. Did they in this case? Who knows. Is Obama specifically to blame? Very unlikely.
Unilaterally? No nothings like that, but thats how laws work. And another things laws tend to do is give a window of correction to abide by such laws. And you seem to discount that.