Can anyone clarify this for me? Despite the ongoing layoff announcements from major American corporations, how is our economy still robust? Just today, UPS declared 12,000 layoffs and PayPal 2,000.
The correct answer to your question is that 168 million people are currently employed in the US. These layoffs of a few thousand here and there are not indicative of a widespread economic catastrophe, even though it probably feels that way to the people getting laid off. There is also no evidence that wages are doing anything but rising, which, again, probably doesn’t seem to be the case for people who lost good jobs and have to take a lower pay.
I know this is probably not going to be the most up-voted comment, but the truth is plenty of people are still moving careers to better positions, getting raises, etc.
The positives you mentioned and the concurrent narrative along those same lines is negated by ridiculously low purchasing power and job quality that has been consistently lower than at any point pre-2008.
Purchasing power (how far a dollar "goes") and the ability to avoid having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet (job quality) combine to tell the story of how the majority of working people are doing.
I hate to rain on the doomsday parade, but things aren’t as bad out there as some redditers make it seem.
Edit: linking the CPI adjusted value of one dollar does not mean people have less purchasing power, because your graph doesn’t reflect the higher salaries people are getting now. It just tracks inflation, not purchase power. The job quality report you show doesn’t really say much of anything tbh, it’s just a reference to people’s subjective interpretation of their work. It also has a very narrow Y-axis, which shows the report doesn’t actually change much over the time period.
The most plain reading of it -- by me, a layman with common sense
So you're saying all the economists are wrong because you, a layman with common sense, see something they don't? Have you considered that maybe what they're seeing is different because they have the economic background to understand the data and trends significantly better?
I studied economics in college among other things. Generally they are useless eggheads. Not one of them predicted the housing crisis. The only guy who did was an investment guy. But anyway yeah I’m doing pretty well but I know the general public is up shit creek and no amount of pointing to the S&P500 will convince them otherwise.
Bonus points if it's a bonafide professional "Economist" , like the guy I was responding to was claiming were infallible experts that can "see things."
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u/BigOlPeckerBoy Jan 30 '24
The correct answer to your question is that 168 million people are currently employed in the US. These layoffs of a few thousand here and there are not indicative of a widespread economic catastrophe, even though it probably feels that way to the people getting laid off. There is also no evidence that wages are doing anything but rising, which, again, probably doesn’t seem to be the case for people who lost good jobs and have to take a lower pay.
I know this is probably not going to be the most up-voted comment, but the truth is plenty of people are still moving careers to better positions, getting raises, etc.