All of the whining about how the economy was so amazing in some undefined past always relies on profound sexism.
Look at the following fragment from a table that condemns the present and praises the past:
Starting from the late seventies, more women joined the workforce. According to the Marxist economist who posted this sexist table, this is some sort of a huge disaster for our society. This table informs us that women started working in greater numbers “to sustain household spending.” Men, as we all know, work because they want to achieve professional realization, become successful, enjoy themselves, and have a life outside of the kitchen. Women, however, are expected to be happy mopping the floor and cleaning the toilet. Only a huge societal disaster can force those poor creatures out of the domestic bliss and into the cold, harsh reality of having a life of their own.
Notice also how the table refers to “women with children.” Have you ever seen any table like this mention “men with children” as a separate category? Does the fact that a woman have a child make her some kind of a social cripple who can only have a career out of dire necessity? Why aren’t we all equally horrified that many “men with children” work? How is the fact that a woman with a 17-year-old son has a job more remarkable than a man with a 17-year-old daughter having a job?
This is what it always comes to whenever you talk to any of the doom-and-gloom pseudo-progressives. The main reason they hate today’s state of affairs is that they aren’t as likely to find themselves a housewife who’ll be happy to clean after them and shut up.
Seriously, if you want to discuss the economy and not be ridiculed, try not to bemoan the fact of women’s liberation too loudly. It’s only a problem in the economic sense because you can’t buy woman as easily as you could in the 50ies. For women themselves, having a greater access to the workplace is the best thing that could have happened to us.
Clarissa's Blog 
Does he have a theory as to why queer women work, since we have no husbands and most likely never will? Or are we some type of economic anomaly?
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“Seriously, if you want to discuss the economy and not be ridiculed, try not to bemoan the fact of women’s liberation too loudly. It’s only a problem in the economic sense because you can’t buy woman as easily as you could in the 50ies. For women themselves, having a greater access to the workplace is the best thing that could have happened to us.”
I think you’re being unfair with this comment. The praise for the 1950s is clearly because of the less unequal distribution of income, the post 1980s world is lamented because increased in productivity have gone into profits and not wages. Nowhere does the chart or the blogger who quoted it bemoan the fact that more women work now compared with the past. The fact that more women with children work nowadays compared with 40 years ago is an established fact, one of the most important social changes in our society, and it isn’t sensible to talk about recent economic history without mentioning it. The only problem I have with the chart is that it makes it seem as if the increase came solely because of the need to maintain living standards while wages stagnated, rather than having social/political causes.
No-where is there any judgement made about the good/bad nature of this change, it is simply observed.
The increase in the proportion of women working, the increase in the use of consumer credit and the rise of third world manufacturing account for the lion’s share of improvement in the average American’s standard of living since the 1970s. All of these trends have now been played out. If there is going to be a solution to the current economic problems, we have to face the fact that it wont involve any of these as solutions. None of this is sexism, nor is pointing it out
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‘The praise for the 1950s is clearly because of the less unequal distribution of income”
-LESS unequal? Ina society where most women had no income of their own?? The idea that anything was less unequal in 1950ies is kind of bizarre.
‘Nowhere does the chart or the blogger who quoted it bemoan the fact that more women work now compared with the past”
-The data about “women with children” appears in a list of negative economic tendencies. In no place of the chart did I see a suggestion that this is a tendency that is being singled out as positive.
‘The fact that more women with children work nowadays compared with 40 years ago is an established fact”
-This single fact redeems the entire trajectory of the US economy.
“The only problem I have with the chart is that it makes it seem as if the increase came solely because of the need to maintain living standards”
-This “only problem” is precisely what makes the blogger who posted this chart a sexist.
‘All of these trends have now been played out. ”
-Absolutely not true. Since the crisis of 2008, even more women joined the workforce. As painful as this recession is, it is bringing us this hugely positive, great development. Of course, if you’ve never been stuck washing toilets and begging your lord and master for 5 bucks to buy a box of tampons, you are not likely to understand why this is so huge.
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“-LESS unequal? Ina society where most women had no income of their own?? The idea that anything was less unequal in 1950ies is kind of bizarre.”
OK I should have said less unequal between different classes of workers – which it was. Women did benefit from this to a limited extent if they were married and had access to the benefits of the better pay-checks of their husbands – but of course it’s better for them and the economy in general if women particiapte directly themselves.
“-The data about “women with children” appears in a list of negative economic tendencies. In no place of the chart did I see a suggestion that this is a tendency that is being singled out as positive. ”
No it doesn’t – it’s listed as part of the consequences of a negative economic trend, which in part it is, but increasing participation of women is of itself a positive trend, and due to political/social factors as I said. I doubt Robert Rich and the graphic artist at the New York Times would disagree (I also they are not Marxists, unlike the blogger who quoted them)
“-This “only problem” is precisely what makes the blogger who posted this chart a sexist.”
No, it’s because it’s historically misrepresentation, but then charts and graphs are not known for being a particularly nuanced means of communication.
“-Absolutely not true. Since the crisis of 2008, even more women joined the workforce.”
perhaps I should have said “nearly played out” – consumer credit certainly is, and there may be more products and services that can be imported to the US more cheaply than domestically produced.
It’s true there is a large amount of unused potential female labour in the US, but is there enough to make the size of difference to American living standard the increase in women’s economic participation has made in the last 30 years? If so, brilliant! I think rising living standards for everyone would be a great thing, (only a few very reactionary people don’t think that) but I’m sceptical about whether it is possible.
There are people who think that the worst thing about the last 40 years is women working, but I think the placing of a graph is very thin evidence to prove that any of the people you are accusing want to send women back to the kitchen.
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” Women did benefit from this to a limited extent if they were married and had access to the benefits of the better pay-checks of their husbands ”
-I’m sure you understand why I have no interest whatsoever in this kind of equality or in this kind of society.
‘It’s true there is a large amount of unused potential female labour in the US, but is there enough to make the size of difference to American living standard the increase in women’s economic participation has made in the last 30 years? If so, brilliant! I think rising living standards for everyone would be a great thing, (only a few very reactionary people don’t think that) but I’m sceptical about whether it is possible.”
-I don’t know and I don’t care whether the increase of female employment will benefit “everyone.” It will definitely benefit women, and that’s great news.
‘It’s true there is a large amount of unused potential female labour in the US, but is there enough to make the size of difference to American living standard ”
-I couldn’t care less, to be honest. I don’t believe that women exist for the purpose of raising anybody’s living standard. We exist to enjoy our own lives. If the way we do it doesn’t suit somebody’s vision of the economy, it’s their problem.
The table I linked to is deeply offensive to women for all the reasons I listed.
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‘The fact that more women with children work nowadays compared with 40 years ago is an established fact”
-This single fact redeems the entire trajectory of the US economy.
wouldn’t you rather have an economy in which there was the highest possible economic participation of women, no gap between incomes of men and women and people at the bottom could find jobs which paid living wages, and there was less inequality between lower, middle and upper classes?
I’m guessing that would be the preferred option for most women as well as most men…
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This is not the comparison the table I linked to makes. The comparison it makes is between the times when a huge percentage of women was stuck in the kitchen trying to cajole a few bucks out of the hubby and terrified of being dumped.
The trajectory of the US economy didn’t lead us to a perfect state of affairs. It did, however, lead us to obvious and decisive improvement over what was before. At my school, we offer university education to kids the absolute majority of whom are the first ones in their families to get a college degrees. Many of them are women whose mothers are still housewives.
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I’m not sure if you are misunderstanding me (and the chart and the article) but if you’re going to argue dishonestly by quoting half a paragraph against me to make a point made invalid by the unquoted section, what’s the point?
OK I should have said less unequal between different classes of workers – which it was. Women did benefit from this to a limited extent if they were married and had access to the benefits of the better pay-checks of their husbands – but of course it’s better for them and the economy in general if women participate directly themselves.
Maybe you just aren’t reading my comments fully.
Whatever.
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Poor women with working husbands have always worked for money too, even when not in with wages on the books (domestic labor, cottage industries, etc.).
The 50s were a blip. There was a huge effort made to keep women at home, and with the economy booming and people still not having learned to consume to the degree they do now, it was economically viable to have many middle class women stay home, or only work part time, etc.
However: it is really interesting how the interest of women to enter the work force from the 70s forward coincided with the destruction of the economy. It has been very convenient for the destroyers of the economy to have women wanting to work, since this meant prices could go up and so on.
I am in the same profession as my father. He was able to raise a family on one income. A generation later, I have not been.
It is literally halved. My father supported a wife and two children. I supported one child. Had I had a spouse and another child, that spouse would have had to work. And we *still* wouldn’t be / have been as comfortable as my father.
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I agree completely that women always worked historically (except for a couple of decades in the US and in a limited social class) and there is just a lot of mythology around women not working. I believe that this society is still paying through the nose for that small historic aberration of being raised by massively unemployed mothers. There must be a reason why the US feminism is the most backwards of all developed countries. There must be a reason why gender discrimination is still legal and rampant.
“I am in the same profession as my father. He was able to raise a family on one income.”
-Even today I make less than a male colleague who has the same or lesser qualifications. Would a woman be able to raise a family on one income in the same years when your father did?
“Had I had a spouse and another child, that spouse would have had to work”
-I’m not sure I understand the part about your spouse who would have “had to work.” Would you really be interested in a guy who wouldn’t want to work? Just the phrase “have to work” bugs me. It’s like having a career, a social position, a life outside of the dishwasher is a punishment or something.
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I have a colleague who has 3 children and a housewife. Also a colleague who has 5 children and a housewife.
Are you sure that you can’t afford the same thing because time have changed and not because of your gender?
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On your colleagues: a lot of men make more, yes. Esp. at your place, I suspect. You can look it up in the budget, it’s in the library, if I’m not mistaken as a frequently used item.
Also: as a professor, you can be in a lot better shape than I am if you go to a job and just stay there. Never have moving expenses and so on. And in IL as I remember, as a state employee health insurance for families is a LOT cheaper than here. Also, you and Kansas / Missouri have some of the best priced good quality housing for middle class families to be
found.
Keys for my father were: (a) university supported research (at my place we are self funded). (b) California didn’t have all those user fees then — you could take kids to parks for free.
(c) cheap gas and no need for heat, a/c, or winter clothing.
(d) good public schools which also supplied textbooks, paper, and so on. That was all about time and place, not gender.
Finally, on your colleagues: remember the “baby magic.” It is amazing, if you have relatives, how many helpful presents you get if you are married, and how many more you get, exponentially, if you have kids. Their wives may not be working, but they may well be fundraising – even if they don’t intend to be. This doesn’t happen to everyone but when it
does … !
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On question 1: If she could get a job and get evaluated in the same way, yes. He’s at a University of California and they have standard salaries in each rank. Asst Prof Step 1 all the way through Full Prof Step 6. He would sit on those evaluation committees for promotions within the rank of Full in other colleges and talk about how the science departments didn’t put women up for increases above Full Step 6 (to the “stratosphere”) when they did for men with the same record.
On question 2: Had to work if we wanted to do anything like
raise kids with any advantages. Remember I’m talking about
2 adults 2 kids. Stuff, food, space, and activities for kids cost
money and it is desirable to take them places. That means concert tickets, camping trips, etc. It takes cash even if you
don’t do “expensive” things. Multiply by four and you need
2 regular incomes nowadays. And yes they can sleep on pillows on the floor but at some point they’ll want a real bed,
etc. It adds up.
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Oh, how beautiful life was women in the 50ies with all those money-making husbands who “shared” wealth with them:
If this doesn’t terrify, appall and enrage you, then you are not a woman.
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did you even read the NYT article that chart was from?
You just want to beat up on a Marxist blogger, because you hate Marxists.
Good for you, enjoy!
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Actually, I quoted this blogger many times in the past and in very positive terms. But when he quotes rubbish, he quotes rubbish.
As for me hating Marxists, it is hardly surprising taking onto account my place of origin. I know where flirting with this kind of ideas takes people: famine, genocide, horror. And I will speak about it as much as I want to, no matter how much it upsets anybody. My experience is just as valuable as anybody else’s.
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It doesn’t upset me that you hate Marxists, or that you criticise them. What upsets me is the intellectual dishonesty involved in your argument, and a false accusation of sexism. You can praise one aspect of the past (such as greater income equality between those employed) without wanting to return the world to the exact state it was in (such as lower percentages of women working.)
And by the way: you yourself have argued in this very thread that women work to support their own standards of living:
“-Absolutely not true. Since the crisis of 2008, even more women joined the workforce. As painful as this recession is, it is bringing us this hugely positive, great development. Of course, if you’ve never been stuck washing toilets and begging your lord and master for 5 bucks to buy a box of tampons, you are not likely to understand why this is so huge.”
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Sexism is singling out one gender. ANY table that shows only “women with children” is sexist because it’s skewed in just one direction.
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“ANY table that shows only “women with children” is sexist because it’s skewed in just one direction.”
but that is obviously nonsense!
What if I have a table that shows “people with children under 18 who are in employment” and it shows (as it would) that the vast majority are working, and I say “oh there can’t be any problem with women stuck at home looking after kids, look at this!”
you’d say “but that chart is misrepresents the situation because it covers men with children too, who have a completely different employment pattern”
Relevant data (presented fairly) has to be presented, I can’t see why you have a problem with that.
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As for “intellectual dishonesty”, that implies saying one thing at first and another one later. Or, saying what I don’t believe. I have done neither.
‘And by the way: you yourself have argued in this very thread that women work to support their own standards of living:”
-Do you see a difference between their own standards of living and to sustain household spending? There is an abyss between the two concepts.
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households of which they are part, and so therefore their own standards of living. Plus “household spending” as an economic measure includes all households: not just male-female traditional nuclear families but also single people (single women) or even women living together. Even then, it’s only household spending because that’s the measure of the chart that suited the point Reich made in the article.
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David, the higher participation of women in the workplace is listed in the table under “Great Regression”. I find that deeply offensive. What are we arguing about? That I shouldn’t be offended? Or what?
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the Great Regression referred to is the one illustrated by the graph showing the share of US national income that went to the top 1% of earners (most of whom are still men incidentally) – their share of national income is “regressing” to the point is was at before the Great Depression. Great Regression is a sub-editors idea of catchy a play-on-words for Great Depression.
read the sentence in full:
“Great wealth to the top 1 percent… was reversed by policy… but then rose again… to sustain household spending… more women worked.. and debt piled up”
If I was writing it I would have written
“Great wealth to the top 1 percent was reversed by policy but then rose again. More women worked and debt piled up which sustain household spending for the less well off 90% and masked the underlying problem… for a time.”
I don’t think you should find this graphic offensive, because I don’t believe that consciously (or even unconsciously) more women working is being shown as a negative trend.
You made a very good point about women not being in the section labour force that benefited from greater equality of incomes during the era labelled “Great Prosperity” (which I agreed with) but no-one in connected with this article is saying that women should go back to the kitchen in order to return to a more equitable income distribution.
I know that some people do say that, and they are fucking deluded idiots, and I understand you’d be pissed off if you saw that as implied by the graphic or the article, but it just isn’t.
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‘I don’t think you should find this graphic offensive,”
-I’m sorry but that’s really not your place to decide.
” I don’t believe that consciously (or even unconsciously) more women working is being shown as a negative trend.”
-And I do. This way of talking about the economy that completely excludes the massive gains that women have made financially in developed countries over the recent decades is extremely ubiquitous nowadays. Here is one example I blogged about recently: https://clarissasblog.com/2011/06/30/was-then-better-than-now/
Whenever anybody moans about how there is no progress and things have gotten worse, that person is automatically a racist and a sexist.
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We have all the space in the world, so quote me in full –
“I don’t think you should find this graphic offensive, because I don’t believe that consciously (or even unconsciously) more women working is being shown as a negative trend.”
You’ve got a right to your own feelings, but what you think is wrong.
Things can get better in some ways and worse in others. The modern pattern of inequality is hardly in the interests of women in the lower 90% of American earners that are receiving a smaller share of national income.
Things are better now for women, but they’re only better in that they now have a better chance to suffer from the same problems as male workers.
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‘Things can get better in some ways and worse in others. The modern pattern of inequality is hardly in the interests of women in the lower 90% of American earners that are receiving a smaller share of national income.”
-This second sentence is very confusing. Are you saying that women now get a smaller share of national income than they did, say, in 1955? In 1965? Or when?
‘“I don’t think you should find this graphic offensive, because I don’t believe that consciously (or even unconsciously) more women working is being shown as a negative trend.”
You’ve got a right to your own feelings, but what you think is wrong.”
-No, it isn’t.
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This table informs us that women started working in greater numbers “to sustain household spending.” Men, as we all know, work because they want to achieve professional realization, become successful, enjoy themselves, and have a life outside of the kitchen. Women, however, are expected to be happy mopping the floor and cleaning the toilet. Only a huge societal disaster can force those poor creatures out of the domestic bliss and into the cold, harsh reality of having a life of their own.
maybe because you’re a professor and you have a job you enjoy, this isn’t as real to you as it is for most men and women but, yes, the reason most of us go to work, in jobs we don’t necessarily like, is in order to earn money to spend and because we don’t like being unemployed. Women work for money in order to spend money? According to most economic theory, that’s why EVERYONE works – and that’s why the it says that on the heading of the chart.
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I wasn’t born a professor and I wasn’t born with a job I enjoy. I started working at 14 because then I lived in Ukraine and it was 1991. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you what this means. So please don’t come to me with all this “oh, you are so privileged” crap. I did, however, find realization and enjoyment from the process of working, being independent, and not being anybody’s appendage.
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Well good for you, but the point stands. For most people, they work to get money in order to spend. You have to do that too, but you have a job you enjoy on top of that.
I did, however, find realization and enjoyment from the process of working, being independent, and not being anybody’s appendage.
in economics however these motivations are not usually taken into account, because they are not easily measured. In economic theory both men and women work to get money in order to spend it and that’s it.
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According to this table, women (who are the ones that even get analyzed) work to supplement the insufficient income of their husbands.
“he Great Regression referred to is the one illustrated by the graph showing the share of US national income that went to the top 1% of earners (most of whom are still men incidentally) – their share of national income is “regressing” to the point is was at before the Great Depression. ”
– The Great Regression is obviously the general title of the right side of the table.
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According to this table, women (who are the ones that even get analyzed) work to supplement the insufficient income of their husbands.
1 – women are the ones analysed because women are the ones who’s working patterns have changed.
2 – well it’s probably true that some married women who began working in the 1980 did so in order to supplement the income of their partners, and wouldn’t have started work otherwise. Even today many women would probably spend a longer amount of time out of work caring for their young children full time but cant afford it. There’s also the point that women *start* working because they need the income, and then find all the good things that come from being employed – these two are not mutually exclusive.
3. what about the 47% of women with children working at work in 1975? where are they supposed to stand in this strange reading of yours?
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‘Even today many women would probably spend a longer amount of time out of work caring for their young children full time but cant afford it. ”
-Just women?? Since when? Just as many men would do so if it were societally acceptable and if there were money to keep them. Or do you think women are somehow physiologically more inclined to being appendages? This is a non-gendered quality, my friend. What women can’t afford is actually returning to work because a woman who makes a choice not to be a housewife is punished on every single level by this patriarchal society. Are you aware of the costs and availability of daycare in this country?
” what about the 47% of women with children working at work in 1975? where are they supposed to stand in this strange reading of yours?”
-I don’t understand this question. I don’t know where anybody “is supposed to stand.” There was large group of women who always worked. Only women of a certain social class were brainwashed into becoming an appendage.
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-Just women?? Since when? Just as many men would do so if it were societally acceptable and if there were money to keep them. Or do you think women are somehow physiologically more inclined to being appendages? This is a non-gendered quality, my friend. What women can’t afford is actually returning to work because a woman who makes a choice not to be a housewife is punished on every single level by this patriarchal society. Are you aware of the costs and availability of daycare in this country?
I only mentioned women because we weren’t talking about men – but of course men too. So what? that’s not a point for your argument. I couldn’t comment on the costs and availability of daycare in the USA, but I’m familiar with the idea of a poverty trap, where the cost of child care, travel, loss of benefits ect. Yes, that’s a big problem, has nothing to do with your argument.
-I don’t understand this question. I don’t know where anybody “is supposed to stand.”
I was referring to the presence of the graph.
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It has to do with your argument: “Even today many women would probably spend a longer amount of time out of work caring for their young children full time but cant afford it.”
I now realize that you genuinely don’t understand why such statement as the one I just quoted from you is offensive. Am I right? If I am right then it’s clear to me why you don’t understand my outrage about the graph in question.
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I understand why you find me saying it offensive – but why do you think it’s not true? not everyone, but a not inconsiderable number.
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For the same reason as saying “even today many blonde women would probably spend a larger amount of time out of work caring. . .”
I’m sure it’s literally true, but the meaning of the statement evaporates when you single out one group based on their irrelevant physiological characteristic.
If one were to say, however, “even today many PEOPLE would probably spend a larger amount of time out of work caring. . .” , that would be a much more factually correct statement.
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See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact-value_distinction
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– The Great Regression is obviously the general title of the right side of the table.
well yeah… that’s where the data covering the period of economic history which is referred to by that name is.
During periods when the very rich took home a larger proportion — as between 1918 and 1933, and in the Great Regression from 1981 to the present day — growth slowed, median wages stagnated and we suffered giant downturns. It’s no mere coincidence that over the last century the top earners’ share of the nation’s total income peaked in 1928 and 2007 — the two years just preceding the biggest downturns.
The thing is that most people in America have got better off in absolute but not relative terms in the last 30 years. If Reich doesn’t account for this then people wont be convinced. How does he do this? By pointing out the contribution made by an increase in women’s economic participation. A male only / proportionally more male workforce couldn’t sustain this size of economy, so in order for the economy to grow further, and for Americans to be be better off and for there to be a more equitable distribution of wealth, women with children could hardly go back into their homes – it would make no sense.
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I don’t know how to say it to make it any clearer. Any person who refers to the last 30 years in terms of a “regression” is a total sexist, in my view. For women, these have been decades of amazing progress. Things are getting better all the time for women, sexual minorities, racial and ethnic minorities. Any screeching to the opposite sounds ridiculous to me. I don’t care what the justification for this line of reasoning is. Right now we are living through the best era in the history of humanity. Absolutely the best ever because greater than ever areas of the Earth’s surface allow women to live like actual human beings.
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I agree – the world now is the best it ever has been for most people, men included.
Any screeching to the opposite sounds ridiculous to me. I don’t care what the justification for this line of reasoning is.
well you need to get passed that prejudice if you’re going to recognise any of the problems in the world that still exist, and have even got worse in recent years.
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David, I’m failing to understand many of your comments. Like this one: “The modern pattern of inequality is hardly in the interests of women in the lower 90% of American earners that are receiving a smaller share of national income if the pattern of income distribution between wage earners in different was the same as it was in 1965 (say) or just more equal in general.” There is something wrong with the sentence. Something seems to be missing after “different.”
Also, in your most recent comment you agree with me in the first line and disagree in the last. Which one is it?
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It’s because I’m typing fast because I’m trying to chase down the reason I disagree with you 😉 It’s a ways from where we started and I think I’ve finally got it.
“The modern pattern of inequality is hardly in the interests of women in the lower 90% of American earners, who are receiving a smaller share of national income if the pattern of income distribution between wage earners was different – if it was the same as it was in 1965 (say) or just more equal in general.”
Have you read the article? If you have then you know why Reich thinks the distribution of income is important.
I agree with you that all in all the world is the best it has ever been for everyone (or maybe it was before the recent economic down turn) but we shouldn’t let that blind us to the fact that it could be better.
Are you happy with the world as it is? Your own life may be good, but then what about other people’s? Have you never experienced any change for the worst in your own life, or seen it in the lives of others?
A clear understanding of the past is important because it shows us the possibility of change and improvement and it can also show us solutions to problems in the world today.
Praising one aspect of the past does not express a desire for everything to be as it once was, and just because the world today is better than it was doesn’t mean there is nothing wrong with it.
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“Have you read the article?”
-No.
“Are you happy with the world as it is? ”
-I’m happy with the good tendencies I’m observing. Things are getting better but there is a long way to go yet.
“Your own life may be good, but then what about other people’s?”
-It isn’t my place to judge.
“Have you never experienced any change for the worst in your own life,”
-When I did, I looked for reasons inside myself and for reasons I needed things to get bad. This is my worldview, as I said before, and I believe I’m entitled to it.
“or seen it in the lives of others?”
-It would be extremely condescending of me to impose my narrative on the lives of others.
‘A clear understanding of the past is important because it shows us the possibility of change and improvement and it can also show us solutions to problems in the world today.”
-Who’s arguing?
” just because the world today is better than it was doesn’t mean there is nothing wrong with it.”
-Again, who’s arguing?
You still, however didn’t answer the question I believe is crucial for this discussion:
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“I agree with you that all in all the world is the best it has ever been for everyone (or maybe it was before the recent economic down turn) but we shouldn’t let that blind us to the fact that it could be better. ”
-Of course. The graph in question, however, never compared the present to the possible future. It compared the present to the past and repeatedly pointed out that the past was better.
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THAN! I missed a bloody than!
“The modern pattern of inequality is hardly in the interests of women in the lower 90% of American earners, who are receiving a smaller share of national income than if the pattern of income distribution between wage earners was different – if it was the same as it was in 1965 (say) or just more equal in general.”
It’s also 4.40 am here, which is making me slightly erratic in my writing.
I’d like to have some work to go to in the morning, but with a 20% youth unemployment rate I’m only getting the odd painting and decorating job, rather than the office work I used to do. My girlfriend studied accountancy, but since no-one wants any trainees at the moment she’s also unemployed.
The future is worrying because all the recent trends show that people in the UK are in less demand in the global economy. The UK economy isn’t growing. There are public service cuts. My mother’s pension rights are being cut. My step-father’s job has just been out-sourced. My sister was lucky enough to get a job as a nanny for a woman who works in the City – in finance.
This is why income inequality bothers me. How am I ever going to buy a house if the already high prices will rise faster than my wages? Housing is in short supply so finding a decent place at an affordable rent is impossible.
If I was born 50 years ago I would have had an easier time of it as a young man. Now all of us, young women and young men, are suffering from a bad economic situation. If there was less inequality and more opportunities all of us – me, my girlfriend, my friends (half of them women, all of them badly off compared with their parents) and the people on the bus would be better off.
Can things be made better? I hope so, I hope there is a way.
I don;t trust in it though.
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I’m sorry the situation is bad. Sadly, all I hear is that things are likely to get worse in the UK as a result of the so-called austerity measures. The public service cuts are in my opinion going to transform the UK into a smaller version of the US, which is not a compliment.
Maybe in the next elections you guys will finally chase the conservatives away? “Cause when Cameron was elected, I think it was clear to all what would happen.
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‘Things can get better in some ways and worse in others. The modern pattern of inequality is hardly in the interests of women in the lower 90% of American earners that are receiving a smaller share of national income.”
-This second sentence is very confusing. Are you saying that women now get a smaller share of national income than they did, say, in 1955? In 1965? Or when?
Sorry, to clarify:
‘Things can get better in some ways and worse in others. The modern pattern of inequality is hardly in the interests of women in the lower 90% of American earners that are receiving a smaller share of national income if the pattern of income distribution between wage earners in different was the same as it was in 1965 (say) or just more equal in general.
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Including title, tag labels, date, author’s name, numbers and text, that post by David Ruccio contains 127 words.
Not counting headings, automatically generated by his blogging software, Ruccio personally wrote 41 words. 68 words were written by Robert Reich, whom Ruccio quotes.
Not once did Ruccio write the words “women”, “woman”, “female”, “females”, “housewife”, “housewives”.
And yet, you conclude: “The main reason they hate today’s state of affairs is that they aren’t as likely to find themselves a housewife who’ll be happy to clean after them and shut up”.
We’re speechless.
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