Facts or Fallacies? Part I: BLS Data v. the Zombie Lump-of-Labor Fallacy-Fallacy
Facts or Fallacies? Part I: BLS Data v. the Zombie Lump-of-Labor Fallacy-Fallacy
by Tom Walker (Sandwichman at Ecological Headstand)
In the third quarter of 2010 real GDP in the U.S. was 21 percent higher than it had been in the fourth quarter of 1999. Labor force participation grew during the same period by 9 percent, an increase of nearly 14 million people. However, between December 1999 and September 2010, total non-farm employment fell by just over 200,000.
Here is what Bill McBride at Calculated Risk (“Older Workers and the Lump of Labor Fallacy”) thinks is supposed to happen:
The number of jobs in the economy is not fixed, and people staying in the work force just means the economy will be larger.
True enough, the economy did get larger ñ by 21 percent. But the number of jobs wasn’t just “fixed”; it actually fell by a fraction of a percent, even though labor force participation also grew. According to McBride, the result would be a classic lump of labor fallacy if it was a fear or assumption that people held about the effects of immigration or seniors staying on the job past retirement age.
This is a common error people make with immigration – that immigrants displace other workers, when in fact immigration increases the size of the economy. I suspect we will see more and more of this age related “lump of labor” fallacy.
So, you see, people make a common error when their ideas about how the economy works agree with the facts. (edited by Rdan) Let’s explore this further.
(Rdan here…I want to clear up a point of intent…Bill is not being included in the Mises or AEI camp of philosophy. Krugman and Samuelson talk of the lump of labor fallacy in a similar manner to Calculated Risk. Krugman also chastises the use of )
McBride suspects we will see more of this age-related fallacy. Indeed, we are already seeing more of this kind of fallacy rhetoric just in the last few months from the minions of right-wing Thinktankia urging that the Social Security retirement age be raised. (Pay attention, Bruce Webb and Coberly!)
Here’s Jason Kuznicki from the Cato Institute (“In which the French are explained, but they remain mistaken”) sneering at young people in France who were protesting against raising the retirement age:
It’s our old friend, the lump of labor fallacy: Force the oldsters into retirement, and it’s like a jobs program for everyone else. There is only so much labor to go around ó not like jobs are ever created, you know – so we’d better be sure we get our fair share of it. Or so the theory goes. The protest signs, insofar as they communicate anything worth repeating, have often read Place aux jeunes! Make room for the young! – or similar.
Not that this approach to economics makes any sense, either theoretically or practically. Putting someone out of work faster means he’s not producing anymore, which makes the economy worse off on the whole. And ‘his’ job won’t necessarily stick around, because retirement is often the least painful time at which to eliminate a position entirely. Today’s workers aren’t likely to be trained for the same types of work as their parents and grandparents, and they shouldn’t necessarily want to be. The lump of labor fallacy imagines a world frozen in time, not one of dynamism and growth.
Or how about Francois Melese at the Ludwig von Mises Institute (“French Students Should Celebrate Pension Reform”) chiding those youngsters, professors, and politicians for not better explaining the facts and fallacies of lump-of-labor life to them:
At first glance, students’ fears also seem warranted. If an older worker is forced to work an extra couple of years, it seems obvious this would delay a young person’s entry into the labor force. If we assume there are a fixed number of jobs, the net effect would be to crush employment opportunities for young people. With youth unemployment already absurdly high – over 20 percent – it’s no wonder students spilled out onto the streets to protest.
However, the fact that students are in the streets demonstrating against this particular pension reform suggests professors and politicians deserve an F ó they have failed to explain what economists call the lump-of-labor fallacy. Jobs are not fixed and do not depend exclusively on the supply of labor.
O.K., now I’m confused. Bill McBride and Jason Kuznicki just told me that more workers means more growth and hence more jobs but now Francois Melese explains that jobs do not depend on the supply of labor. Which is it? Maybe Andrew Biggs at the American Enterprise Institute (“The Case for Raising Social Security’s Early Retirement Age”) can straighten things out:
Increasing the number of older workers is the first step toward increasing retirement security, but there must also be demand for this large workforce. Some argue that no jobs exist for older workers. But this claim commits what economists call the “lump-of-labor fallacy,” which holds that there are a limited number of jobs for which workers must compete. Economists almost universally reject this view, and the fact that employment continues to rise despite immigration and rising worker productivity (which presumably would reduce the need for extra workers) speaks against it.
Phew! Now I think I get it! There must also be demand for the larger workforce. And the fact that employment continues to rise in spite of immigration and rising productivity proves that there is not a limited number of jobs…
Oh, wait… That brings me back to the BLS figures I started with. The number of jobs is not increasing. In fact it fell by 200,000 jobs over the last eleven years. How can “the fact that employment continues to rise” speak for or against anything when, in fact, employment doesn’t continue to rise? It’s going to take another blog post (or two) to unravel this unholy mess!
“In the third quarter of 2010 real GDP in the U.S. was 21 percent higher than it had been in the fourth quarter of 1999. Labor force participation grew during the same period by 9 percent, an increase of nearly 14 million people. However, between December 1999 and September 2010, total non-farm employment fell by just over 200,000.”
One more fact we need I’m afraid.
What was the increase in labour productivity over the 11 years?
Historical levels are what, 1.5% or so annually? Compound that up over 11 years and you’re about there. We’re producing 21% more value out of 200,000 less jobs. 200,000 jobs is a rounding error in the size of the US economy. And if (IF) labour productivity grew 21% over the 11 years, then we’ve got our answer, haven’t we?
In the long term it is a fallacy, but in the long term we are all dead. In the short term it is closer to true. If people were talking about how we needed to make people work longer when the economy was strong and unemployment low, it might be a fallacy, but when they are talking about this when the economy is weak and unemployment high, it is mostly true. Unemployment could be remedied in short order through work sharing, but most are employed and unwilling to share.
Record profits for business in the 3rd quarter and unemployment near 10%. Gowing income inequality, currently rivaling that of the 1920’s. Coincidence? I do not think so.
Lord –
You’ve hit on something here – not with long vs short term, but with strong ve weak economy.
The biggest problem with Cato type thinking is it’s absolutism: that something is true (or close enough) in a certain place and time means that it is then true in all places and times – a classic fallacy of complosition.
The entire ediface of economics is bullshit, because it’s built on a foundation of this kind of invalid thinking, along with a number of unfounded assumptions.
Cheers!
JzB
Here’s a suggestion to cut the work week.
http://www.counterpunch.org/coyle12242010.html
Cheers!
JzB
tim –
Net result is no wage gain for workers over 40 a span of years; meanwhile, top few % have captured every penny of the economic gains due to productivity increases. Economic desparity has never been higher. Throw in sky high unemployment and you can see why the tea baggers hate Obama!
JzB
It must be structural unemployment–we should stop giving money to people too lazy to work. Oh wait, that might not make much sense either. Okay, maybe our policies haven’t exactly focused laser-like on full employment? Maybe unemployed people don’t vote and employed people don’t care about them as much as we’d like to think (especially since so few nowadays have unions telling them to care)?
“ then we’ve got our answer, haven’t we?”
Depends on what your question is, Tim.
Here is far right economist Paul Krugman making the same argument as me.
http://www.pkarchive.org/column/100703.html
best to all
It all sounds to me like the hopeless drivel we get when macroeconomists find out they they can create job demand for themselves by becoming professional propagandists, and unfortunately, work forever at it as well.
But clearly the young college graduate whom majored in waitressing oftentimes does not get a job as a psychologist or French speaking person.
At the other end of the scale, long time employees at a corporation whom have developed skills valuable to that particular employer would have great difficulty re-entering the workforce if anything happened to their job. Also, as as you get older, the present value of significant training becomes worth less to you and costs more to boot.
Our concept of “flexible economy” that Greenspan so fondly spoke of said nothing about guaranteeing demand for labor. I also think the term “labor productivity” s/b re-named to “business productivity”.
Hey CR, you didn’t address Tom Walker’s data. Appeals to authority, even Krugman, still aren’t enough of an argument to overrun the BLS data. The BLS data suggests that the amount of jobs has been pretty fixed over the last ten years. As a poster said above, 200k jobs is a rounding error. Seeing as we exist in a fixed jobs environment, shouldn’t our policy match that fixed jobs environment? In that fixed jobs environment, retiring older workers will open up jobs for the young. If we existed in an environment with an every increasing job supply, which is crazy pants fantasy land, then sure, I might call the lump of labor theory a fallacy. But as it stands, your appeal to authority is the only fallacy I see.
JDUB, it seems unfair to group me with certain economists, when Walker knows that Krugman and Paul Samuelson both have made the same argument as me. (I sent Krugman’s piece to him – and he told me he was aware of Samuelson’s argument too).
It is Walker who is trying to use anti-appeals to authority 🙂
best to all
When your unsure, and you can’t predict the future regulatory envirnoment you tend to hang on to your profits tightly.
The fools who allowed the latest crop of Democrats and Obama to have any say in our Capitailist economy are the real villians.
At least we are on the path to relieving some of that worry, just two more years, and maybe…God Willing…we can get some better people in the leadership positions.
Thanks, Bill, That’s coming in Part II! I’ll email you a preview.
Hi Sandwichman:
Color me thick headed.
While it is true the numbers of people in the Civilian Labor Force grew, the percentage of the NonInstitutional Civilian Population in the Civilian Labor Force actually decreased by ~2% from 1999 to 2010. This is an increased burden upon the economy as a lower percentage is working, less tax revenue is gained (see Median Income), and costs for those not working are up.
Mr. Walker what am I missing in this analysis?
Actually, PK is a pretty conservative, by the book, Keynesian (or neo-Keynesian.)
As I read his stuff from the ’90’s I’m surprised by how conservative his basic view point is most of the time.
Before anybody skoffs at me for saying “conservative Keynesian,” let’s remember that Keynes was, above all, a capitalist, and he was working hard to save capitalism from collapse when many others were looking toward communism as the ultimate answer.
Keynes didn’t attempt to everthrow classical economics – he made modifications to try to allow it to accomodate and explain phenomens like the GD, that according to calssical models simply could never occur.
Before anybody skoffs at em for calling PK conservative, let’s remember that it was his protestations against the economic idiocy of GWB policies that earned him his reputatoin as a liberal – along with the undying hatred of the Right.
Cheers!
JzB
Mine is the great god of reason – so:
If the immigrant remains theirs to Mexico???
If the immigrant buys stuff made in China with their wages???
What is ti that the senior takes his wages from MacDonalds and buys that provides work for the youth???
Is one job created per immigrant, more than one, or ….???
Does the ‘Fallacy’ apply both ways???
Microeconomic studies have shown that immigration can create jobs, and that these are higher paying jobs in healthcare and government services. They have also shown that this can create fiscal stimulus as well.
I think Mish is a ridulous, almost totally wrong-headed right wing hack. But I follow his blog because he puts up information you’re not likely to stumble across many other places, and he has graphs.
Here, his pictures tell an interesting story about the current jobless recovery.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/12/unemployment-situation-in-pictures.html
Notable quote: “26% of Jobs growth in 2010 has been from temporary help services.” Isn’t that lovely! Read the rest of his prose at your own risk.
Cheers!
All that means is that the civilian population grew faster than the labor force. As for the reasons for the declining participation, it could be a demographic shift or it could be people leaving the labor force because of sensing no job prospects. Or maybe its a third thing or a combination. We’d really need to examine much broader sources of information to offer a definite interpretation.
Ah ‘Capitailist‘, Eric you may have revealed more than you know. Because if the Top Cats don’t control their ‘Trickle Down’ they may end up grooming their tails more than they might want to. Got to get the smell out somehow.
Ah ‘uncertainty’. Jeez Eric did you come up with that meme on your own?
For what it’s worth… As I noted in my paper (which I don’t think you quoted) in the short term the demand for labor may be (more or less) fixed, which is why I proposed a gradual increase in the early retirement age rather than doing it all tomorrow. But over the long term the demand for labor isn’t fixed. Distinguishing between short- and long-term effects is pretty common in economics and I think the basic problem with your post is the failure to make that distinction.
Look at it this way: over their lifetimes, people pretty much consume what they earn, excepting taxes, transfers, inheritances, etc. If we raised the early retirement age for Social Security and everyone worked a few years longer, people ask where the demand for that labor would come from. The answer is that those people who work a bit longer would also consume a bit more (both at the time, and once they do retire). To satisfy the demand for that higher consumption will require more workers. So there’s no reason to believe that, over the long term, the jobs won’t be there. There are other factors that make it hard to employ older workers — which I also addressed in my AEI paper — so I don’t want it to sound simiplistic, but I think these issues can be addressed.
If you look from country to country there are widely varying rates of labor force participation at different ages and most studies attribute them to policy differences (see the NBER work by Gruber and Wise, for instance). If the lump of labor view isn’t a fallacy, that implies that it’s simply impossible for the French to work as long as people in other countries do, that there’s something about France that limits the number of jobs it can have. I find that hard to believe.
I’m not interested in country to country; my interest lie here. The model you allude to is long since broken. One-fourth the world’s labor force could easily meet the demand for goods. A demand with potential of far exceeding the earth resources. If the US, with 5 % per cent of the world’s pop. consumes 20% of …, how much would a world where the rest of the population consumes a like amount?
If the lump of labor view isn’t a fallacy, that implies that it’s simply impossible for the French to work as long as people in other countries do,
This is the kind of absolutist thinking that reduces economics to drivel. If something is true, then it is IMPOSSIBLE, always and everywhere, for a contrary idea to be true. That is why Austrian economists believed the Great Depression was the Great Vacation. They couldn’t recognize that real world economics differs across space and time, and the absolutes only work as special cases. Thus, the condition in France proves that the LOLF is a correct concept. Very pat. Also a classic fallacy of composition.
GDP growth has been dismal, but still positive over most of the past 10 years, yet employment has not kept pace, as Tom demonstrated with actual DATA, and unemployment is now sky high. Recent college graduates can’r get jobs, and illegal immegrants are giving up and going back to their dismal homelands, because they are out of work here.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-10/us/immigrants.economy_1_day-laborers-immigrants-and-native-born-americans-immigration-experts?_s=PM:US
Riddle me that LOLFer.
Another reason the LOLF is a fallacy is that it attributes to nonbelievers a concept to which they do not actually subscribe: that the number of jobs is fixed (more erroneous absolutist thinking.) The reality is that there can be in certain times and places, an imbalance between workers and jobs available. Clearly, that is the case now. Nobody has to suppose that the number of jobs is X, to ten decimal places. You only have to realize that the number of jobs is growing a) slower than the number of workers, b) not at all, or c) is in fact negative. Any of these can easily happen in the real world.
So, LOLF is itself a fallacy for two obvious reasons:
1) It is based on a fallacy (of composition.)
2) It dishonestly represents the position of the contrary point of view.
Can I put a QED on this?
JzB
“If the lump of labor view isn’t a fallacy…”
Andrew, first, thank you very much for responding. My point is not that the “lump of labor view” isn’t a fallacy. My point is that one doesn’t have to assume a fixed amount of work in order to doubt YOUR assumption of a long-term full employment equilibrium.
“The answer is that those people who work a bit longer would also consume a bit more (both at the time, and once they do retire). To satisfy the demand for that higher consumption will require more workers. So there’s no reason to believe that, over the long term, the jobs won’t be there. “
Perhaps those people would consume a bit more abut the unemployed would consume a bit less. Just as there is no reason to assume that the jobs won’t (or can’t) materialize in the long term, there is no reason to assume that they inevitably will. Both outcomes are subject to policy interventions and the divergence between theoretical models — any theoretical model — and the real world.
QED!
“The answer is that those people who work a bit longer would also consume a bit more (both at the time, and once they do retire). To satisfy the demand for that higher consumption will require more workers.”
Sounds like something of a chicken before the egg assumption. The consumption behavior of one group who may be employed over a longer period of time can’t be causative in and of itself. As Tom notes, what of the lack of consumption amongst the unemployed who may see their unemployment prolonged by any plan to prolong the work life of others. how does one move up, or into, the work force if there’s a bottle neck at the opther end of the employment ladder? The way to increase demand is to increase the total employment number. It’s something like income. The best way to assure and maximize the fungibility of money that is in the form of income is to spread that income more widely within a given economy. Workers with more income to spend are goiong to create the demand needed to increase the number of jobs, which in turn will increase the spread of income and so on. Son’t ask people to work for longer periods of time if you’re looking to increase their consumption behavior. Just pay them more money. In other words, flatten out the right side spike of that income distribution curve.
Tom:
It is not a comparison I would have picked for reasons not germaine to your article (bur my own) which the text of your article appear to make relevant to the conclusion reached. I am more excited to see where your part 2 and part 3 goes.
I took an early retirement package two years ago because my employer was literaly paying people to go the hell away. That’s a SHRINKING lump of labor.
This business about raising the retirement age is a ploy to deprive social security recipients of what they have worked their entire lives to recieve – until they’re dead.
That it also serves to impoverish those who manage to cling a while longer to their dismal existance is merely collateral damage.
JzB
I think that the PIIGS are in deep strife in 2011.
Alot of people think we are doomed, but there are still great ways to make money.
I subscribe to the FFT newsletter at http://www.forecastfortomorrow.com that guy is calling for a bigger event to come in the next few months. His oil calls are insane, and I have been making good money with that.
Start stocking up on gold people!! Do it yesterday.
economy
Transcript:
>>and when we’re at a time when there’s so many people in their 50s who are unemployed and may not be able to get back into the job — the job market, I mean, it’s unlikely to happen, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to actually lower the eligibility for social security retirement?
>>It might be, Sam. In fact, a lot of people right now are saying that the eligibility age for social security retirement given the depth of our continuing jobs recession — and this jobs recession does continue — maybe should be lowered so that you create openings for younger people coming into the job market who right now don’t have a chance because there are so many older people clogging up the pipes, as it were.
I’ve posted a video clip at http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2010/12/visit-msnbc.html from Robert Reich on tonight’s Olbermann show
Transcript:
>>and when we’re at a time when there’s so many people in their 50s who are unemployed and may not be able to get back into the job — the job market, I mean, it’s unlikely to happen, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to actually lower the eligibility for social security retirement?
Reich: It might be, Sam. In fact, a lot of people right now are saying that the eligibility age for social security retirement given the depth of our continuing jobs recession — and this jobs recession does continue — maybe should be lowered so that you create openings for younger people coming into the job market who right now don’t have a chance because there are so many older people clogging up the pipes, as it were.
Biggs
you don’t sound simplistic. You sound dishonest. We know what you do for a living… think of well sounding rationalizations for destroying Social Security. Even if everything you say is true, raising the retirement age imposes a hardship on most of the people who would be required to work longer. Even if that causes the economy to grow and creates more jobs (which won’t be filled because another one of your rationalizations for killing Social Security is the lower number of young people available to work to support all those potential retirees), the purpose of human life is not to increase the GDP, but… well, something else, which you might discover if you ever got time off from work.
Especially if your work is generating well sounding lies for an evil cause.
It always helps to read the news once and a while too….
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Where-are-the-jobs-For-many-apf-2052621322.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=
I hope this does not triple post: I do not understand why it is happening.
PK: “Second, lump-of-labor thinking — and the policy paralysis it encourages — feeds protectionism. If the public no longer believes that the economy can create new jobs, it will demand that we protect old jobs from new competitors in China and elsewhere. Economists can explain until they are blue in the face why limiting exports from developing countries would be a bad idea — why keeping our markets open to new producers is in America’s interest both economically and diplomatically. But theoretical arguments for free trade will count for little if the real-world experience of jobs lost to Chinese competition can’t be offset by a credible promise that new jobs will be created to replace them.”
Originally published in The New York Times, 10.7.03
PK: “If discussion of Chinese currency policy seems confusing, it’s only because many people don’t want to face up to the stark, simple reality — namely, that China is deliberately keeping its currency artificially weak.
The consequences of this policy are also stark and simple: In effect, China is taxing imports while subsidizing exports, feeding a huge trade surplus. You may see claims that China’s trade surplus has nothing to do with its currency policy; if so, that would be a first in world economic history. An undervalued currency always promotes trade surpluses, and China is no different.
And in a depressed world economy, any country running an artificial trade surplus is depriving other nations of much-needed sales and jobs. Again, anyone who asserts otherwise is claiming that China is somehow exempt from the economic logic that has always applied to everyone else.”
Published Sep 14, 2010 12:01A
I hope this does not triple post: I do not understand why it is happening.
PK: “Second, lump-of-labor thinking — and the policy paralysis it encourages — feeds protectionism. If the public no longer believes that the economy can create new jobs, it will demand that we protect old jobs from new competitors in China and elsewhere. Economists can explain until they are blue in the face why limiting exports from developing countries would be a bad idea — why keeping our markets open to new producers is in America’s interest both economically and diplomatically. But theoretical arguments for free trade will count for little if the real-world experience of jobs lost to Chinese competition can’t be offset by a credible promise that new jobs will be created to replace them.”
Originally published in The New York Times, 10.7.03
PK: “If discussion of Chinese currency policy seems confusing, it’s only because many people don’t want to face up to the stark, simple reality — namely, that China is deliberately keeping its currency artificially weak.
The consequences of this policy are also stark and simple: In effect, China is taxing imports while subsidizing exports, feeding a huge trade surplus. You may see claims that China’s trade surplus has nothing to do with its currency policy; if so, that would be a first in world economic history. An undervalued currency always promotes trade surpluses, and China is no different.
And in a depressed world economy, any country running an artificial trade surplus is depriving other nations of much-needed sales and jobs. Again, anyone who asserts otherwise is claiming that China is somehow exempt from the economic logic that has always applied to everyone else.”
Published Sep 14, 2010 12:01A
I hope this does not triple post: I do not understand why it is happening.
PK: “Second, lump-of-labor thinking — and the policy paralysis it encourages — feeds protectionism. If the public no longer believes that the economy can create new jobs, it will demand that we protect old jobs from new competitors in China and elsewhere. Economists can explain until they are blue in the face why limiting exports from developing countries would be a bad idea — why keeping our markets open to new producers is in America’s interest both economically and diplomatically. But theoretical arguments for free trade will count for little if the real-world experience of jobs lost to Chinese competition can’t be offset by a credible promise that new jobs will be created to replace them.”
Originally published in The New York Times, 10.7.03
PK: “If discussion of Chinese currency policy seems confusing, it’s only because many people don’t want to face up to the stark, simple reality — namely, that China is deliberately keeping its currency artificially weak.
The consequences of this policy are also stark and simple: In effect, China is taxing imports while subsidizing exports, feeding a huge trade surplus. You may see claims that China’s trade surplus has nothing to do with its currency policy; if so, that would be a first in world economic history. An undervalued currency always promotes trade surpluses, and China is no different.
And in a depressed world economy, any country running an artificial trade surplus is depriving other nations of much-needed sales and jobs. Again, anyone who asserts otherwise is claiming that China is somehow exempt from the economic logic that has always applied to everyone else.”
Published Sep 14, 2010 12:01A
On a side note, the Sandwichman’s lump of labor rebuttal is highlighted in a post by Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber, “What “lump of energy” fallacy?:
http://crookedtimber.org/2010/12/29/what-lump-of-energy-fallacy/
jack
it never occurs to our right wing friends to let the workers decide for themselves: “hey, i’ve got enough saved for retirement, should i retire now or keep working to make even more money?”
they confuse minimum retirement age with mandatory retirement age.
they ignore that the people, through Social Security, are saving enough of their money so they can retire if they want to, or need to.
no, the idea is that if you don’t let them retire, you can add 90,000 dollars per non-retiree per year to “the economy” and the economy thanks you very much.
the idea is to force us all to worship money as the reason for living.
CR –
There are things in this universe that are beyond my comprehension.
In all due repect, sir, one of them is how you can persist in the LOLF fallacy when you post this (emphasis added):
As of November there were 7.4 million fewer payroll jobs in the U.S. compared to the peak of employment in 2007. If the U.S. economy adds 200,000 jobs per month, it will take 3 years to get back to the previous peak (2 years at 300,000 per month). And that doesn’t include jobs needed to offset population growth (about 125,000 jobs per month).
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/12/few-for-graphs-for-2010.html
Cheers!
JzB a seriously baffled trombinst
In fact I think that the idea is to keep us working so that we never seek to draw on those benefits we have been prepaying for all these years. If the draw is reduced then maybe they can raid the Trust Fund more easily. Secondarily, if we keep working ’til we’re ready to drop we’ll be paying in yet more payroll taxes for the pleasure. Imagine the incongruity of paying into a retirement assurance plan with no plan to retire. Seems ass backwards to me.
jazzbumpa: “Net result is no wage gain for workers over 40 a span of years; meanwhile, top few % have captured every penny of the economic gains due to productivity increases. Economic desparity has never been higher. Throw in sky high unemployment and you can see why the tea baggers hate Obama!”
Err, from what you say I can see why they hate Reagan and Bush II. 😉
I’ve got your lump of labor right here . . .
http://i.imgur.com/L1Emy.png