The EPI article Wages for the top1% skyrocketed 160% since 1979 while the share of wages for the bottom 90% shrunk by Lawrence Mishel and Jori Kandra (12/1/2020) reports: As Figure A shows, the top 1.0% of earners are now paid 160.3% more than they were in 1979. Even more …
Read More »How many people live in poverty?
It depends on what we mean by poverty. The World Bank blog post A quarter of the world lives in societal poverty by Marta Schoch, Dean Mitchell Joliffe, & Christoph Lakner (12/2/2020): Measures of absolute poverty, such as poverty at the US$1.90, US$3.20 and the US$5.50 international poverty lines, have the advantage of …
Read More »Who earned the most in the 3rd quarter of 2020?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has a Graphics for Economic News Releases page. The graph copied here is median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers. Most of the patters are not a surprise, such as men earning more than women. What may be new here is …
Read More »How do we compare the racial differences in home ownership?
To address this question we start with a recent post by Kevin Drum (10/23/2020): Are Black Homeowners Suffering from Slow Price Growth? There’s no question that homes in majority-Black neighborhoods are undervalued compared to similar homes in majority-White neighborhoods, but do they also appreciate more slowly? The article goes through …
Read More »How important is manufacturing to the U.S. economy?
At the end of August I posted about the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S in the post How many people are employed in manufacturing? The Census Bureau has a recent post, Manufacturing Still Amon Top Five U.S. Employer by Adam Grundy (10/2/2020) that adds some context. Manufacturing is …
Read More »What is the connection between poverty and extracurricular activities?
The Census Bureau post Even Short-Term Spells of Poverty Lower School-Aged Children’s Involvement in Extracurricular Activities by Brian Know (9/23/2020) quantifies the challenges of students due to even temporary spells of poverty. The percentage of children ages 6 to 11 taking lessons was significantly different between those who were in …
Read More »What is median household income by race and ethnicity?
The EPI article Racial disparities in income and poverty remain largely unchanged amid strong income growth in 2019 by Valerie Wilson (9/16/2020) reports the data from the Census Bureau on income and poverty in the graph copied here. …real median household income increased 10.6% among Asian households (from $88,774 to …
Read More »How many people are employed in manufacturing?
Elections seem to bring out various statements about manufacturing employment in the U.S. So, here is a review of manufacturing in the U.S. The graph here was created using FRED, which is a great resource for economic data. As a percent of all employees, manufacturing peaked in the early 1940s …
Read More »Is the racial wealth gap evenly distributed by class?
The article The Racial Wealth Gap is About the Upper Classes by Matt Bruenig (6/29/2020) on the People’s Policy Project explains. First the racial wealth gap is large: If you take the net worth of all white households and divide it by the number of white households, you get $900,600. …
Read More »How has Covid-19 impacted unemployment by race?
The chart here comes from using FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data). Since at least the 1970s Hispanic or Latino (using FRED terms) unemployment was consistently between Black or African American and White and more recently slightly closer to White unemployment. For possibly the first time since the 1970s Hispanic or …
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