Slip-Sliding Away

[Geee]

National Review:

Yet more evidence that government is swallowing up the productive economy.

The good news is that wages still make up a majority of the nation’s income. Barely.

USA Today reports that in 2010, “wages accounted for the lowest share of income — 51.0 percent — since the government began keeping track in 1929.” In February of this year, “wages slipped to another historic low of 50.5 percent of personal income.”


As the proportion of our income derived from wages has declined, the proportion derived from government has increased. “A record 18.3 percent of the nation’s total personal income was a payment from the government,” USA Today writes. The recession obviously has much do with this, but “the trend shows few signs of easing, even though the economic recovery is nearly 2 years old.”
Government accounted for roughly 12 percent of income from 1980 to 2000, according to the paper, then started an inexorable march upward. In 1990, Americans on average received $3,686 in benefits from government; in 2000, it was $4,763; in 2010, $7,427. Almost all of it comes from the feds.

Someone has to pay for this, and if it’s not our creditors, it’s people making money and paying taxes. The private economy is caught in a vise between old-age entitlements and welfare programs for the poor. Everyone knows about entitlements. Social Security and Medicare already cost about $1.2 trillion, even before baby boomers begin to retire in earnest. Medicare has grown by 80 percent since 2000, and is set to career ever upward.

[Sanguine]

"...though the economic recovery is nearly 2 years old.”

 

LOL! And, I needed a laugh this morning!

[NCTexan]

Barry will need to dig a little deeper into his "stash".