This is the richest year ever in human history. Never in history has there been such a notable advance.

But before we drool too heavily over the lives of the rich and famous, another set of stats came out a few months ago that doesn’t paint quite the same picture of good fortune for America’s working people. Hat tip to Ian Welsh at the Agonist for this info from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

From 2003 to 2004, the average incomes of the bottom 99 percent of households grew by less than 3 percent, after adjusting for inflation. In contrast, the average incomes of the top one percent of households experienced a jump of more than 18 percent, after adjusting for inflation. (Census data show that real median income fell between 2003 and 2004. Average income is pulled up by gains at the top of the income spectrum; much of the 2.3 percent rise among the bottom 99 percent seems to largely reflect gains by households in the top ten percent of the income spectrum. In contrast, trends in median income capture the experience of households in the middle of the income spectrum.)

The top 1 percent of households (those with annual incomes above about $315,000 in 2004) garnered 53 percent of the income gains in 2004….

…The share of total U.S. income that the top one percent of households received in 2004 was greater than the share it received in any prior year since 1929, except for 1999 and 2000.

So, while the rich get richer, the middle class is shrinking. (Alternet today posted excerpts from a recent Paul Krugman speech on the shrinking middle class that puts the issue in perspective.)

Other economic indicators also show a less rosy scenario for working people. Such as the drop in construction jobs, which fell by 62,000 in February, after posting a net gain of 28,000 in January, according to data out today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As Bonddad notes,

The housing slowdown is starting to hit employment numbers. I would expect this number to continually worsen over the next year as the housing slowdown starts to bleed into the rest of the economy.

Manufacturing jobs took another hit in January as well, dropping by 14,000. Overall, private-sector jobs showed only a net gain of 58,000 last month, its lowest monthly gain since November 2004. Public-sector job increases kept January’s job numbers from tanking, by adding 39,000 jobs, for a total of 97,000 jobs last month.

As the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes, the job market remains tight and wage growth solid (after nearly four years of stagnant wage growth, wages recently have shown some signs of life). But the nonprofit group also says recent data show troublesome signs, such as slowing growth in the number of hours worked and a 1.7 percent spike in long-term unemployment. Plus real gross domestic product growth, with only a 2.2 percent fourth quarter increase, did not rise nearly as fast as in previous quarters.

As noted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, even if the decline in hours worked was weather related,

it is worthy of note that this is the largest one-month decline since June 2004.

And as we noted last week, home owners with subprime mortgages are getting hit with new monthly mortgages they can’t afford. Some 20 percent of subprime loans at the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial, are more than 60 days late and late payments are increasing in the non-subprime mortgage markets. (Check out Mark Winston Griffith at DMI blog for a take on how subprime market disintegrations that have shaken Wall Street have not stopped some “free marketeer cowboys” from cooling their heels.)

So what does it all mean? Means even if Bush weren’t in Brazil peddling alternative fuels for South America while we pay higher and higher prices for fuel oil, the economy looks a lot better from the top.  

 

 

 

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