Time to take another look at the economy. Most people thing the economy is doing well, and this seems primarily because of the rise in stock prices and the low unemployment rate.
However the problem areas in the rust belt and the farm belt are still, well, trouble areas.
Farmers have been hit hard by this administration's policies, specifically in regard to tariffs, which increases their costs and reduces their competitiveness.
A cynical person might think that the only beneficiaries of driving out smaller farmers would be the larger corporate farmers who can buy up farms cheaper.
While there has been some increase in manufacturing, the number of jobs and skill levels required is still low and then high. The jobs for low skill union workers in large factories like we had in the 50s are not coming back. We see some rise in wages, partly as a result of minimum wage increases and partly because we might have hit the bottom on wages.
If average wages decrease as low paying jobs replace higher paying jobs, at some point that will be complete and we will have a new wage base, that will increase. It might take a while for the average wage to equal what it once did, but it will increase.
We see the same thing in the housing market where many homes are still selling below the peaks of the last decade.
We still have an escalating deficit and another factor is that companies are reducing benefits in the pension and health areas because of cost.
So how are we doing under this economy? Well same as we always have under Republicans, the rich get richer and the rest of us look for trickles.
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