![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.mathewbinkley.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/economy-growth-and-who-gets-it.png\" "\\"economy-growth-and-who-gets-it\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nA little explanation.\u00a0 The first highlighted column shows how much the average person’s real wealth increased over that decade.\u00a0\u00a0 So by the end of the 1910’s, the average person was 13% wealthier than at the start of the decade.<\/p>\n
You can see that the 3 worst performing decades of the past century were the 1910’s (due to World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic), the 1930’s (due to the Great Depression), and yes, the 2000’s (due to the dot.com boom, the Great Recession, and lackluster growth between the two).<\/p>\n
Some other things pop out to me.\u00a0\u00a0 The 1940’s – 1960’s really were great times to live, relatively speaking.\u00a0 The country earned tremendous wealth during that era, and more of that wealth found it’s way into the hands of the average Joe.<\/p>\n
Compare that to the 2000’s.\u00a0\u00a0 Not only was growth over that decade less than half of the previous decade, but a larger share went to the upper 10%.\u00a0\u00a0 The top 10% is making 10% more income than they did during the 50’s.\u00a0 That’s $1.4 trillion dollars a year.\u00a0 Divided equally among the bottom 90%, that’s over $5,000 a year that the Average Joe is *not* getting.<\/p>\n
This isn’t to wail on rich people.\u00a0\u00a0 I’d love to be one someday, plus there aren’t enough billionaires in the country to skew the numbers that much.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most of this effect is due to skilled knowledge workers earning a larger and larger share of the economic pie.<\/p>\n
This is all great if you happen to be in the top 10%.\u00a0\u00a0 To the other 90%, the 2000’s was a pretty dismal decade to live in.\u00a0\u00a0 And unfortunately, this decade isn’t starting off any better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I set up this blog to post some of my larger ramblings that don’t fit on Facebook very well.\u00a0 So here goes… GDP per capita is a very good way of measuring increases in our country’s wealth.\u00a0 I had a … Continue reading