I swear I had Econ in college, but I don’t remember anyone saying this so succinctly. It’s from a weird place too, but this quote hits home. It’s like population decline, but for money.
It was a truly baffling thing for an American president to say. And University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers explained on MSNBC that things could get very bad as Trump’s scheme becomes reality. Wolfers ntoed that the idea of how much you can afford to buy with your income is called “real income.” And if real income falls, that’s called a recession. Wolfers went on to explain that if things decline as badly as Trump’s example, where someone who bought 30 dolls could only afford to buy two dolls, that’s called a depression.
Video from MSNBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAZxLm6M_V0
I’m not much a math person or econ person. Do you have any ideas on what that would like like? The Econ professor in the video said the real income is aka GDP. He was loosely speaking though, so I don’t know if that’s a one to one. I guess I could put something up and people will tell me how it’s wrong? I don’t mind that.
lol that’s the BEST way to get the RIGHT answer on the internet. Put something up, say it’s X and someone will tell you you’re wrong and it’s Y. Easier than asking how to do X. :-D
Whelp, here you go. It only does a quarterly GDP or “real income” analysis.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/37116488
I, too, am far from being either of those things, but it sounds like you could just track purchasing power to get a rough idea. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding it, but it seems to me that, if inflation or other factors have eaten into your purchasing power and you haven’t gotten a corresponding raise to offset it, you can reasonably conclude that the economy is getting worse for you in your personal circumstances.
Although I think it’s great to track that too, I don’t think that includes wage earnings and such. Like for the Big Mac Index by the Economist listed. the price of a Big Mac doesn’t say much about the income levels of who is buying it. It seems to be more focused on the cost of production instead of the person buying it. Minimum wage is still so low across the country and hasn’t been raised for so long, that the price could be kept low. Again, not an economist, but that’s my insecure take.