Here in a glance are the politics of each state, the most popular governors and the best performing states in terms of fiscal health, level of inequality, affordability, poverty rate, and labor market participation.
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Politics and Economics
...in 1901 the average US family’s income was $750 - worth about $2300 a century later. Before 1940, households spent more than a third of their income on food alone.
Meanwhile, the National Conference of State Legislatures released a report on the partisan composition of state legislatures as of November 8, 2017. I figured that state legislatures are largely responsible for the fiscal health of their states and was curious how the state fiscal rankings matched up with the political composition of their legislatures. This is what I found...
"Since the payoffs of free riders depend on the total contribution to the public good, the only way to punish free riders in this experiment was to stop contributing. This is the tragedy of the commons.” - Section 4.7 Public good contributions and peer punishment - The Economy
That adds up to 75% of households within the lowest income quintile that are either families headed by women or individuals living alone. In other words, fathers living with their families are mostly missing from the poorest households in this country.
One surprise is that so many of the low-income households are owner-occupied. But remember, per our previous posts, that 57% of the lowest income category are headed by individuals who are 55 or older. A
My purpose here ... is to understand why some people get stuck in poverty, because you can't hope to fix a problem you don't understand. And part of that is figuring out who needs help and what kind of help. Sometimes we're talking about old or disabled people, who don't need a job - they just need to help in paying their bills. Sometimes we're talking about young people whose poverty is transient (see that 14% in the lowest income group with a Bachelor's Degree or more?), who don't really need special assistance from the government. And then there are the poorly educated and single parent families.
A few observations. Lower income households skew old: 57% are 55 or older, an age group likely to be dominated by retirees and disabled folk. Affluent households skew middle aged, but once they hit the golden years, their numbers dwindle...
In other words, substantial majorities of all political groups feel they've achieved the American Dream or are at least getting there. Yet we hear all the time that "the American dream is dead". Take this Chicago Tribune commentary, "The American Dream is dead, and voters are angry". To quote...
As it is, we already have 23 million prime-age (24-54) adults who are not part of the US labor force. Many are unmarried, childless men with limited education and skills. Their numbers keep growing: the rate of inactive prime-age men has more than doubled since the 1970, when it was 4% It is now 11%.
The “world does not end, the blue bird does not return, love does not reveal itself in all of its profound tenderness and charity, and death and mourning and crying and pain do not disappear.” Yuri Slezkine.
Here’s what they said they'd rather do with their time:
- Spend quality time with loved ones (55 percent)
- Pursue a creative passion, like art, music, video (39 percent)
- Travel (38 percent)
- Go to school (32 percent)
- Volunteer (29 percent)
- Take care of their heath (29 percent)
- Take care of child (children) (29 percent)
So we have at least 6.1 million poorly paid full-time workers with limited earning potential. If they had a guaranteed UBI, I imagine some of these individuals would get off the treadmill and manage with the UBI, perhaps working part-time or taking on the occasional full-time gig.
Family farms of various types together account for 99 percent of all farms, and those account for 89 percent of the production as of 2015.
So how many workers in today's labor market would choose not to work or work fewer hours if they got a UBI? We've already got 35% who are good candidates: rejected applicants for SSDI/SSI and part-time workers.
Now what does this have to do with a Universal Basic Income (UBI)? It's part of my project to estimate (roughly!) how many Americans would drop out of the labor market, reduce their hours, or otherwise downshift their career aspirations if they could count on an UBI.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 15% of American workers are part-time by choice; in other words, they don't want to work full-time. Another 3% of American workers are part-time for economic reasons, meaning they want to work full-time but have either had their hours reduced due to business conditions or simply cannot find full-time employment. These workers are typically young, male, single, and poorly educated.
The number of non-earners (read: non-taxpayers) and part-time workers will likely skyrocket. They will be supported by the rest of the population, especially households in the top two income quintiles.
Wealth does not measure the inherent value of an asset, only its market value at a particular point in time. Sources of wealth include real estate, stocks, bonds, bank deposits, pensions, and mutual funds. One's own home is the main source of wealth for the majority of Americans, except the most affluent.
Slowly but surely the US is catching on to the advantages of using nurse practitioners as independent primary care gatekeepers. A big factor in the gradual acceptance of this expanded role for nurse practitioners is the shortage of GPs, which has left millions of Americans without access to primary care providers.