Recent Nobel Laurate Paul Krugman reviewed how typical plumbers did under Republicans and he found, not very well: "And when it turned out that the rightâs new icon had a few issues, like not being licensed and comparing Mr. Obama to Sammy Davis Jr., conservatives played victim: see how much those snooty elitists hate the common man? But whatâs really happening to the plumbers of Ohio, and to working Americans in general? First of all, they arenât making a lot of money. You may recall that in one of the early Democratic debates Charles Gibson of ABC suggested that $200,000 a year was a middle-class income. Tell that to Ohio plumbers: according to the May 2007 occupational earnings report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of âplumbers, pipefitters and steamfittersâ in Ohio was $47,930. Second, their real incomes have stagnated or fallen, even in supposedly good years. The Bush administration assured us that the economy was booming in 2007 â but the average Ohio plumberâs income in that 2007 report was only 15.5 percent higher than in the 2000 report, not enough to keep up with the 17.7 percent rise in consumer prices in the Midwest. As Ohio plumbers went, so went the nation: median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower in 2007 than it had been in 2000. Third, Ohio plumbers have been having growing trouble getting health insurance, especially if, like many craftsmen, they work for small firms. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2007 only 45 percent of companies with fewer than 10 employees offered health benefits, down from 57 percent in 2000. " http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/opinion/20krugman.html?ref=opinion Seneca
The Bush economy from 2003-present was all an illusion driven by a bubble in real state. People can't take out equity in their houses anymore to go buy bmws and rolex watches. We just have to enjoy our newfound prosperity from Bush's tax cuts, oh wait - there is no prosperity. I want to know how much of a "trickledown" in real wages an average person experienced as a result of Bush's "brilliant" tax cuts. I know one thing for sure, and that is that the budgets got destroyed under "W".