money money money
The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Americans' savings rate lowest since Depression
Americans are spending everything they're making and more, pushing the national savings rate to the lowest point since the Great Depression.
Soaring home prices apparently have convinced people they don't have to worry about saving, a belief that could be seriously tested as 78 million baby boomers begin to retire.
i have to seriously take issue with the second paragraph. this trend has been going on for a long time, longer than this housing boom. the article makes a lot of statements about why americans aren't saving, but there doesn't seem to be any hard research to back any of it up.
the reasons for lack of savings is probably a complex one. for one thing, americans are now consumers first and workers second. there has been a large cultural shift, and well, americans are making a lot of bad choices. and another simple fact is that americans make less than ever before. adjusted for inflations workers' real wages have been dropping for at least 15 years. and with costs of healthcare and higher education going up, what's a middle or lower class guy supposed to do?
The Who's Better Off Game. interesting. alas, only data since 2000.
check the extended entry for some hard data i pulled up at bureau of labor statistics (cause i don't believe in spouting BS. i'm a scientist, yo!)
Earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls in current and constant dollars by industry (change from 2004 to 2005). average across all industries is -.3%. and that was supposed to be a year when the economy recovered. but we knew that already. the economy is adding jobs, yeah, but those jobs pay less than the ones that were lost at the beginning of bush's term.
source: bureau of labor statistics
real average wages 1985-2005
Series Id: CES0500000049
Seasonally Adjusted
Super Sector: Total private
Industry: Total private
NAICS Code: N/A
Data Type: AVERAGE HOURLY EARNINGS, 1982 DOLLARS
note that wages dropped in the wake of the reagan presidency and rose during and in the wake of clinton and are now turning back around to drop during bush.
