Many families are still suffering from the large financial setbacks of the Great Recession. New research from the Federal Reserve of St. Louis highlights the ongoing financial struggle families headed by different age cohorts face as they attempt to regain wealth and income lost during this period. Families headed by those born after the 1960s, for example, have been unable to fully regain income lost during the Great Recession by the end of 2016. The youngest families studied, headed by those born during the 1980s, have fallen furthest behind in the typical wealth-accumulation life cycle, leaving them with limited income growth compared to other families. In spite of suffering losses during the Great Recession, though, families headed by someone born in the 1930s through the 1950s were able to rebuild wealth and regain income by 2016.
Jun 01 2018
President Trump Job Tracker May 2018
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will release its second estimate of how much the economy grew in the first quarter. While Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers are an important and closely-watched measure of the economy’s strength, they don’t tell you whose incomes rose and who saw their incomes fall. GDP tells an incomplete story.
National spending on prescription drugs is rapidly growing in the United States, faster than any other type of health care spending. And on an international level, U.S. per capita drug spending far outpaces other countries. In 2015, the U.S. spent $1,011 per person on drugs, more than double what the U.K. spent. The Trump administration continues to make empty promises when it comes to reducing drug prices, recently proposing that the U.S. persuade other countries to raise their drug prices. But higher prices abroad will not result in lower prices here at home. Instead, Americans need a stronger approach that will crack down on excessive drug prices.
May 21 2018
May Economic Snapshot of the States
Although the U.S. economy overall continues its expansion following the Great Recession and associated financial crisis, the recovery can look very different from state to state. The lion’s share of economic gains are not only concentrated at the top of the income and wealth distribution, but also in a small share of regions. While some parts of the country have surged ahead, millions of Americans in urban and rural communities are still waiting for their wages to start rising again and struggling to make ends meet.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps struggling families get through tough times. But it does more than that, SNAP also sets children up for future success, leading to better health and economic outcomes and ultimately putting children into a position where they are less likely to need assistance as adults. House Republicans are currently working on a plan that erodes this investment in children, though. If passed, more than a million recipients will lose SNAP benefits, with most of them living in households with children.
This fact sheet provides a snapshot of the current economic state of Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in the United States. It includes measures of economic well-being, such as income and poverty rates, as well as data on educational attainment, unemployment, and health insurance rates. Together, these measures help paint a portrait of the AAPI community’s economic health while demonstrating that headlines often mask variation within the group.
The labor market has steadily improved since 2010, as the economy recovered from the Great Recession. Looking past the headline unemployment rate, though, shows that there is still room for employment to grow. In January 2007, 80.3 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 54 were employed, today that rate is 79.2 percent. Getting back to the higher rate would mean that 1.4 million more Americans would have jobs.
May 10 2018
GOP Tax Law Has Not Led to Real Wage Growth
Today’s latest inflation data shows American workers are not seeing real raises. The average hourly wage for production and nonsupervisory workers in April was only 0.1 percent higher than what it was a year ago, after adjusting for inflation. Wage growth for most workers is weak and now that inflation is starting to pick up, wages are barely keeping pace. And this comes on top of decades of stagnating wages for most workers. If wage growth is barely keeping up to inflation, American families will see little improvements in living standards.
Before Medicaid, many Americans couldn’t afford the care they needed. For more than 50 years, the Medicaid program has guaranteed access to comprehensive health insurance for millions of people, providing coverage to over 72 million beneficiaries today. In doing so, Medicaid has bolstered the U.S. economy and provided an important backstop to the country’s economic security.
