FlamingText

Fun With Numbers! Pt 2.

More "Fun with Numbers." Featuring the always-riveting marriage of politics and math.

Taxes
Average Tax Break for bottom 60% of earners under administration's tax plan:
$350
Average Tax Break for top 1% of earners:
$96,634
Source:Citizens for Tax Justice.

Health Care
Number of people who have become uninsured since Bush took office:
3.8 million
Number of people who gained insurance under Clinton administration:
2.3 million
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
In the same period, family health-care premiums have risen by more than $2,700 a year. The average cost for a family plan is now above $9,000. A total of 43 million Americans are now uninsured.

Number of retirees who will lose employer-paid drug coverage due to new Medicare bill:
2.7 million
Number of retirees whose employer-paid drug coverage will be cut by the new Medicare bill:
9 million
Number of Medicaid recipients forced to enroll in Medicare drug benefit, resulting in higher cost sharing and no coverage for some drugs:
6.4 million
Source: Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Manufacturing Jobs:
Manufacturing Jobs lost in 2003:
582,000
Manufacturing jobs eliminated since 1997:
3.3 million
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Software Industry:
Number of jobs lost in software-producing industries from 2000 to 2004:
128,000
Number of jobs gained in India in software-producing industries from 1999 to 2003:
150,000
Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Trade Deficit:
U.S. trade deficit in 1999:
$271 billion
U.S. trade deficit in 2003:
$549 billion
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce.

Education:
Amount Administration has underfunded its own No Child Left Behind Act since it was passed in 2001:
$26.4 Billion

Opinion:
  A commenter on the previous posting questioned the inclusion of CEO pay as a relevant statistic, and I admit that by itself it does seem to be something of a red herring. My intention at the time was to relate it to several other things, in particular the statistics on tax breaks, job creation (or lack therof), and average worker pay. I realize I am engaging in editorializing by using CEOs as a shorthand for the very richest people. Sue me. (This is a figure of speech. Please do not sue me.)

I believe it to be relevant because I think it refutes the claim that tax breaks for the highest earners stimulate job creation, the "rising tide lifts all boats" philosophy, variously termed supply-side or trickledown economics when it was previously employed during the Reagan-Bush years. If this were the case, one would expect the upward trend in CEO pay and the general growth in the holdings of the very wealthiest Americans to parallel similar gains in employment and worker pay. But this seems to be the opposite of the trends we actually see.

 In fact, so far the results of this administration's application of supply-side remedies for the stalled economy would seem to agree with predictions made based on the results of that previous era, that is to say high deficits, recession and an overall bleak job picture. These results can be obscured (as they were in the Reagan years) by statistics showing overall growth in the economy; which only confers advantage on the average worker if that money does indeed trickle down. This is why I find the numbers on worker pay to be a better measure of general economic prosperity than unemployment, although either is more relevant to most of us than the GNP.

 With more people out of work or underemployed, rising health care costs, more and more of us uninsured, and the Baby Boom reaching retirement age, demands placed on social programs are bound to increase. Yet there is substantially less money than before to fund those programs. As for the private sector, the same logic applies: the pressure placed on private health plans by an aging population will mean that the portion of those insured who are still earning wages while incurring relatively lower medical expenses will have to pick up the slack.

 The statistics on job loss would seem to indicate that skilled, relatively high-paying jobs (such as those represented in the software stat) as well as unskilled, lower-paying jobs are leaving the country. The example of India is of interest because India's rise as a tech center corresponds to an agressive program of education adopted there a generation ago to train more workers in these skills. At the same time, spending for education here has languished. Here again it seems that as the need for investment in education becomes even more pressing, the funding to provide that education will be less available .

 To answer another point posed by the same commenter, I understand that the president has limited control over the economy. I also recognize that many of these trends extend beyond the term of the current administration. However, I do believe that the policy decisions made by an administration have an effect. I don't believe that a ship captain is responsible for the weather, only for steering through it.

A further note:
 I am not a statistician. Therefore, the most persuasive evidence I see for the state of the economy are based on my own observations, and what I've observed is this: A sharp rise in the people-I-notice-sleeping-in-doorways Index, a precipitous climb in the boarded-up-storefronts Average and a gigantic leap in the people-around-me-who-have-been-downsized Indicators.

Posted by flamingbanjo at September 13, 2004 07:46 PM