This negative jobs growth trend should have everyone up in arms, but instead we shrug, retreat, and self-medicate

 What has any politician done for you and your kids in 20 years?

Job creation under Trump in 2019 using W-2 payroll data actually looks pretty crappy based on the most recent figures out in October: The worst in eight years

 

MIT's living wage calculator is a joke

Living Wage Calculator

For my location and our family size we have been getting by on at least 1/3 less than the calculator says we need, and we have been doing it FOR YEARS on end.

The reality is about 65% of individual wage earners in this country make less than the calculator says our family must make in order to get by, which must mean a lot of people are in the same boat as we are.

W-2 payroll data for 2017 just out shows huge slowdown to monthly additions from 2016

Monthly additions dropped from 227,000 (revised up 4,000) in 2016 to 160,000 in 2017 (figures rounded to the nearest thousand).

There were a number of other revisions to the data in this series of more minor significance (incorporated).

Total nonfarm December 2017 on December 2016 was up 182,000 monthly. The civilian employment level was up 149,000 monthly.

America's three middle classes accounted for 56.5% of total 2016 net compensation of $7.627 trillion

The lower classes accounted for only 13.6% of the total net compensation in 2016 and the upper classes for 29.9%.

The three middle classes are composed of almost 74 million individual wage earners in 2016, representing 45.1% of the total 163.5 million receiving W-2s in 2016. There are about 40 million individual wage earners in the lower middle class, about 22 million in the middle middle class, and about 11 million in the upper middle class.

Just over 80 million individual wage earners, about 49.3% of the total, made less than middle class incomes in 2016, that is, less than $30,000 annually.

Just over 9 million individuals made upper class incomes, that is, above $125,000 annually.

The upper class is just 5.6% of the total work force but makes almost $2.3 trillion of the net compensation.

The tax farmers eye the middle income classes because that's where the bulk of the money is to be harvested, about $4.3 trillion in 2016.

The lower classes, again almost half of the wage earners, account for only just over $1 trillion of the net compensation in 2016.

W-2 data isn't the whole story of income in the United States but is probably the most accurate snapshot indicating what's what and who's who for the "Why me, Lord?" question those who struggle for the legal tender ask themselves every April 15 or thereabouts.

Job creation in 2016 is the closest we've come to "robust" since the year 2000

The W-2 data clearly show that the vast majority of the job losses during the crisis occurred under Obama, not Bush

Bush W-2 employment 2004-07 narrowly beats Obama's 2011-14

Bush gains in W-2 employment:

2004 1.7 million

2005 2.2 million

2006 2.3 million

2007 1.7 million

total  7.9 million

Obama gains in W-2 employment:

2011 1.0 million

2012 2.2 million

2013 2.2 million

2014 2.4 million

total  7.8 million

The first six years of Bush:    5.8 million

The first six years of Obama: 2.8 million

The Workforce Depression Of 2007 Remains 4.19 Million In The Hole According To Social Security

The size of the workforce earning wages for Social Security purposes went into multi-year depressions since 1990 three times: 1990, 2001 and 2007.

The 1990 depression saw the workforce shrink by 1% and not recover in size until the third following year.

The 2001 depression saw the workforce shrink by 0.4% and not recover in size until the third following year.

The 2007 depression saw the workforce shrink by 3.3% and as of 2011 still has not recovered, four years later. The depression in workers through 2011 is 4.19 million, and since the bottom in 2010 982,000 workers have been added through 2011. 2012 figures will be available in mid-October 2013.

The depression in jobs designated "usually full-time" is 5.35 million, 4.3% below its 2007 peak.