Weekly Economic Snapshot 7/31 - 8/4

Economic Facts for this Week

• Education plays a critical role in American’s lifelong economic success. Adults attaining only a high school diploma earn $400,000 more over their lifetime than those who did not graduate high school. Adults with associate, bachelor’s, and graduate degrees earned, respectively, $280,000, $920,000, and $1.6 million more over a lifetime than someone with only a high school diploma.
• Educational disparities contribute to significant income and wealth gaps by race and ethnicity and by regions of the country: White adults are twice as likely as Hispanics, nearly twice as likely as American Indians, 1.5 times more likely than blacks, and 1.3 times more likely than Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders to complete a college degree. Rural Americans are only half as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree as urban residents.
• Just six months of policy uncertainty created by President Trump and the Republican-led Congress will cost Americans more than $100 billion of GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) recently downgraded forecasts for U.S. economic growth in 2017 and 2018.                                            

Chart of the Week

 

Most Americans measure their economic health in terms of a good job that pays decent wages, rather than in stock market prices. Since President Trump took office in January and the 115^th Congress convened with Republicans in the majority, workers’ wages are falling across most of the country. In 43 states plus the District of Columbia wages fell by an average of 1.7 percent between January and June, the most recent state data available, after adjusting for inflation. Michigan posted the worst decline at 4.3 percent. Only seven states saw wages increase this year, on average just 0.5 percent. See more data in JEC Democrats most recent Economic Snapshot of the States.

ICYMI

• CEOs at America’s largest companies took home an average of $15.6 million in compensation in 2016, or 271 times their average worker. The average CEO pay is 5.3 times larger than the average income of someone earning compensation at the top 0.1 percent of income.
• The 81 percent rise in university tuition and student debt from 2001 to 2009 is responsible for as much as 35 percent of the sagging homeownership rate among 28- to 30-year-olds.                                                                                      

Coming This Week

• Tuesday 8:30am: Personal Income and Outlays for June 2017 - https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/pi/pinewsrelease.htm
• Friday 8:30am: Employment Situation for July 2017 - https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
• Friday 8:30am: U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services for June 2017 - https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/trade/tradnewsrelease.htm