A couple reports have come out in the last couple days that summarize what President Bush has wrought during his administration.
The kind folks at ThinkProgress’ Wonk Room are kind enough to summarize for us:
First, executive pay vs. worker pay:
In fact, “the more that corporations shell out for executive pay, the more they pocket in profit at the expense of average taxpayers.”
There are a couple disturbing charts, too. Go take a look.
Next, income inequality under President Bush:
Taking the new census numbers into account, most Americans lost money during the Bush expansion:
- Median household incomes down: 0.6% lower in 2007 than in 2000
- Men’s earnings down: 0.38% less in 2007 than in 1999- Women’s earnings can’t keep up: continued upward swing but were unable to “overcome other drags on household income”
- More Americans in poverty: 5.7 million more people lived in poverty in 2007 than did in 2000
The Center for Policy and Budget Priorities notes, “never before on record has poverty been higher and median income for working-age households lower at the end of a multi-year economic expansion than at the beginning. The new data add to the mounting evidence that the gains from the 2001-2007 expansion were concentrated among high-income Americans.”
This is also accompanied by some disturbing graphs.
Robert Reich summarizes thusly:
Compared to median income in 2000 — which, like 2007, was the final year of a cycle of economic growth — it’s now clear that this is the first time Americans have become poorer, in real terms, at the end of an expansion than they were at the start.
This will, no doubt, be lost amidst the convention madness of the next couple weeks but it should provide plenty of ammo for Democrats in the next few months.
