Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
It is bizarre that Americans seem oblivious to how they’re emerged from the pandemic with a far stronger economy and higher incomes than anywhere in the world. They’ve left Europe and Asia in the dust. And no, the wealth isn’t just being hoovered up by the rich. The poorest 20 per cent of Americans haven’t seen their real incomes rise this fast in decades.
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I'd be curious to see the data on that. Everything I've seen points to stagnant real income across most income levels. Median real income, median household income, and disposable income have all been flat or have declined in the last 4-5 years. GDP per capita has gone up, but given that income hasn't, that would suggest that any wealth that's getting generated is finding its way into asset prices rather than wages.
And of course, it's not just a question of money. US life expectancy is downright awful at this point. The US's 2023 Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy is now 69th in the world, and is closer to Iraq, Syria, Guatemala, and Cambodia than it is to Canada's. And they are 180th of 183 countries in terms of improvement in that metric since the year 2000, ahead of only Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Sudan, gaining only 0.3 years in that period.