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As Minnesota thaws out from a “polar vortex” that froze us colder than the North Pole (and the current location of the rover on Mars), there was some interesting news on jobs from all over the nation. Three stories of thawing and a little heat coming down give us all reason to be a little happy.
Spring is still months away, but let’s bask in the small improvements for a while. It beats huddling inside.
There is little doubt that income inequality will become the Democratic Party’s big issue for 2014. While there is a good chance the problem will correct itself once there is upward pressure on wages again, it is still an important policy that the Federal Government can and should pursue. It’s very popular, too, with 58% of identified independents supporting some action.
Barataria has outlined a few ideas that will have a longer-term effect, but what can be done in the short term? The answer is something equally popular, raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour – a 39% increase. It seems like a longshot, given the Republican House, but if the recent budget deal forged by Sen Murray and Rep Ryan is an indication of the future there may be room for a grand deal. But there is little doubt that the Democratic position will include the minimum wage increase. It’s worth getting to know well.
In his inaugural speech, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio returned constantly to the theme of “A Tale of Two Cities”. New York is big enough to be both of them at once – one a poor city where people barely get by and another that is wealthy beyond the imagination of most people. But it isn’t just his city that de Blasio wants to fix. “This inequality problem bedevils the entire country,” he intoned. “But it is not just a moral outrage, it is a horrible constraint on economic growth and on giving people the security they need to tackle problems.”
So starts 2014, the year when inequality is certain to be the big social, political, and economic issue. That is a given because after many years of intellectual stagnation the Democrats have a popular issue that they can run with. Where did it come from? A lot of credit has to go to a short video published in November 2012 that still lights up social media. And the reaction to it shows how far we have to go in order to tackle the problems of inequality.
After all, it’s not a matter of policy – inequality is a feature of the system we have.
It’s been a good year, even if it didn’t seem like it. 2013 was the year that the economy turned around just enough to lay the foundation for a better 2014 in several key ways. The most important is that more people have jobs, even if it’s nowhere near enough to make up for the losses from 2008-2010. The other reason is that retail sales are actually picking up and there’s reason to believe that there will be more confidence as we move ahead. The last part is very important because the psychology of a depression is the main reason it has the name it has.
Barataria was very successful in predicting the important trends of the year early on. A summary of the best posts of the year is available in the tab 2013 in Review, if you’d like to rewind the whole year. But here are the economic highlights in a quick summary.
In a steady crunching beat over crispy snow it’s one foot after the other. Head down to measure every step for solid footing before the next careful crunch. There’s nothing but grey sky tinkled with flakes if you bothered to look ahead anyway. Most of the US has experienced that this December, but the economy has been doing that for at least four years now. And like a brisk and noisy walk through the cold eventually you find that you have actually gotten somewhere.
Along with the blustering weather news that has dominated this month there has been a lot of good economic news. Most recently the growth in GDP for the third quarter came in at a rosy warm 4.1%.. The National Retail Federation tells us that the holiday retail season is indeed going to come in with an impressive 3.9% growth over 2012, the high end of predictions. But not everyone thinks the future is so bright. It’s worth running down the reasons for both naughty and nice economic news for next year.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 