The right frequently seems genuinely mystified as to why so many Americans tell pollsters how unsatisfied they are with the economy. Bush and his allies frequently say, “Look at GDP and unemployment rates! You guys should be thrilled! What kind of idiots are you people?”
Maybe news like this will help conservatives better understand the widespread discontent.
Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they had to make ends meet with less money than at the peak of the last economic expansion, new government data shows. […]
The combined income of all Americans in 2005 was slightly larger than it was in 2000, but because more people were dividing up the national income pie, the average remained smaller. […]
Total income listed on tax returns grew every year after World War II, with a single one-year exception, until 2001, making the five-year period of lower average incomes and four years of lower total incomes a new experience for the majority of Americans born since 1945.
Got that? Income growth not only stopped after Bush took office, but the last five years are unprecedented in the post WWII-era.
But the really entertaining part of the story is the White House’s response.
Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, attributed the drop in average incomes to “the significant wrenching hits that our economy took in 2001 and 2002, so no one should be surprised that what a bubble economy created in the late 1990s and 2000, where economic data were skewed, would take some time to recover.”
Mr. Fratto said the fact that nearly all of the growth in incomes was among those in the upper reaches of the income ladder and that the majority of investment tax breaks went to those making more than $1 million “is not a very interesting story.”
Oh Tony, thanks for your input, but I think we’ll be the judge of what is and isn’t an “interesting story.”
The White House response is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, Fratto is struggling to blame everyone else for five years of Americans earning less money. I was particularly fond of Melissa McEwan’s translation of Fratto’s assessment: “Thank you, White House Spokesman Tony Fratto, for taking the time to create a new way of saying ‘Clenis!’ + ‘9/11 changed everything’ = ‘f**k you.’ Very refreshing!”
And second, as the NYT hints, Fratto’s perspective about a gradual recovery doesn’t add up because some Americans are doing quite well.
The growth in total incomes was concentrated among those making more than $1 million. The number of such taxpayers grew by more than 26 percent, to 303,817 in 2005, from 239,685 in 2000.
These individuals, who constitute less than a quarter of 1 percent of all taxpayers, reaped almost 47 percent of the total income gains in 2005, compared with 2000.
People with incomes of more than a million dollars also received 62 percent of the savings from the reduced tax rates on long-term capital gains and dividends that President Bush signed into law in 2003, according to a separate analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, a group that points out policies that it says favor the rich.
CTJ’s Robert McIntyre told the Times that he expected the select few at the top to benefit from Bush’s tax policies, but said the size of the savings “still takes your breath away.”
He added that the tax savings at the top, combined with lower average incomes after five years, “shows that trickle down doesn’t work.”
As if there was still any doubt….