
Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers - timr
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101196.html?hpid=topnews
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noonespecial
Just wanted to point out that although my "net worth" has not increased, I now
have a phone that can pinpoint me on a satellite aerial map, and direct me to
the nearest favorite coffee shop, I'm in better contact with friends and
family than ever before-for less, and my desktop computer can do in a day what
my 1999 computer took a nearly a month to accomplish, using less power. My TV
has a resolution greater than my best 1999 monitor (oh and its the size of an
aircraft carrier), even for broadcast junk, dvd's come _to me_ in the mail,
and even if they don't my internet is fast enough to _stream them_. I could go
on all day.

Sure I don't have more money, but I sure as hell feel richer. Lost decade
indeed.

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spamizbad
What's sad is, even if we continued our "boom" year trajectory , there'd only
be a decade of modest job growth: better than 0%, but still less than the
70's, 80's, and 90's.

We need to start rethinking our assumptions about creating jobs: it's not as
simple as tax cuts and/or spending programs.

~~~
cwan
That's an unfair comparison. It was at historically low levels of job growth
because the US was experiencing below average unemployment rates to begin with
(ie it's tough to grow additional jobs when people are employed - you will
always have a certain percentage of unemployed just because of friction). You
can chart/see historicals here:
[http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?series_i...](http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?series_id=LNS14000000)

If unemployment fell much further there would be significant concern over
inflation (because the only way to fill jobs would be to keep increasing pay
for the same amount of work).

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kadavy
There may have been 0 net job creation; but the way we communicate with one
another - and work - was drastically disrupted for the better. In the 10's we
will reconsider and rebuild it all.

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j_baker
Dumb question time. What are the aughts?

~~~
fnid

       Aught 3 = '03
       Twenty Aught 6 = 2006

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kingkongreveng_
Try a lost three decades. Real median household income hasn't increased since
the 70s.

<http://mwhodges.home.att.net/family_a.htm>

~~~
gojomo
...but households have been shrinking in the same period, so the household
income numbers aren't directly comparable over time.

~~~
kingkongreveng_
The increase in two income families much more than offsets that. Where one
income used to be sufficient two are now necessary.

~~~
gojomo
Well, you started with a quantitative observation about income figures, but
now have shifted to a qualitative (and more subjective) suggestion, that
today's two-income families are worse off than the one-income families of the
past.

Maybe they are, but it depends a lot on interpretation of whether the 2nd
income is a matter of choice or desperation. And, one side effect of women
working more is men working less.

For example, in this meta-survey of time allocation across many countries,
average 'market hours worked' by women in the USA rose over 4 hours from 1975
to 2003 -- but the same figure for men dropped by over 8 hours. See Table II:

<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1233842>

I know that no one household is exactly one average man and one average woman
-- but if we imagine that as one possible data point, that household is
working less overall, but with more of the working hours carried by the woman,
and still earning more in real terms.

