If you want to make the case for improvement, you can just measure welfare in terms of how inexpensive computer prices are; sneakers are another story. Cherry picking data points is easy.
On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 11:09:23AM -0500, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Mar 6, 2007, at 10:12 AM, James Heartfield wrote:
>
> > I don't ignore the figures Doug gave. He showed that median
> > household income
> > rose by 15 per cent between 1973 and 2005.
> >
> > He also showed that hourly wages fell by 11 per cent. But given
> > that those
> > dollars (as my table shows) bought more goods, hourly wages
> > measured in
> > consumer goods as opposed to dollars have not fallen.
>
> James, what do you think "real" means in this context? It means
> corrected for price increases. So if real wages are down, they by
> definition don't buy more goods and services per hour of work -
> unless your omission of "and services" was deliberate, because
> services inflation is running at twice the rate of goods inflation
> (and services are about 60% of spending).
>
> Household income rose in the face of declining hourly wages because
> more people have to work longer hours. Is that progress?
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com