If times are so bad, how come 158 million have it so good?
That being the number of people working, the most since Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon back in the summer of '69.
The market for their labor has perhaps never been better - for them. Because so many others have opted out of work, since the political class shut down the economy in the name of the pandemic - paying millions not to work. Many of them never returned to work, leaving millions of jobs open to those who want to work.
The forgotten man once again showed up.
Employers are paying top dollar for those who want those jobs.
Not, incidentally, because the government is telling them how much they must pay those who want them - i.e., the so-called "living wage" Democrats like to talk about. These workers are doing much better than that, in spite of the government's best efforts - because they are often worth more than a “living wage” to employers, who are desperate to find people willing to do the job now that so many aren't.
We're hiring! Employees wanted!
The signs are everywhere. And so is the money. Companies have increased their payroll budgets by nearly 4 percent, both to attract new hires and to retain those still working there - who might otherwise be lured by the prospect of even higher pay to go work someplace else. According to a survey of 240 businesses done by the Conference Board, the increase in wages for those who want to work is the highest it's been since 2008.
Curiously, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sees this as a negative, describing the market for labor as “tight to an unhealthy level.”
But "unhealthy" for whom - and why?
It was, after all, Democrats that tried to end what had been good times for practically everyone - because Orange Man Bad. It apparently did not matter to Democrats - who claim to be the representatives of working people - that their scorched-earth efforts to get rid of President Trump also got rid of the prosperity that practically everyone who was working before the pandemic was enjoying.
Now the Democrats can’t stop talking about how “tight” the labor market they distorted with their paying-people-not-to-work has become.
Others can’t stop talking about it, either.
An article published by DNYUZ quotes a Wisconsin woman named Lindsay Bernhagen. “Both my husband and I have been able to make job changes that have doubled our income from five years ago,” she said. Like millions of others, the couple have found work with start-ups that arose in the wake of the manufactured destruction of so many small business, especially in blue states. More than 1,000 of these are now valued in excess of $1 billion each, a massive uptick from the 250 or so that started up back in 2015.
It's proof positive that people want to work - when the government lets them. And that there are millions of people who want to earn their money rather than have it handed it to them in the form of a dole.
Including the record-high 22 million millionaires now residing in the United States according to Credit Suisse. That's five million more than there were back in 2015.
Two of them are Dwight and Denise Makinson of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. “Our net worth has reached the millionaire level due to our investments,” said Dwight Makinson, a retiree from the U.S. Forest Service. “This was unfathomable when we were married 40 years ago.”
Part of the reason for the Makinsons’ good fortune is their frugal action over those 40 years. The couple saved rather than spent - and so had money to invest when opportunities arose.
Their prudence has paid off, abundantly - as it has for many others who have been careful rather than profligate with their money. They have built up retirement portfolios that have markedly increased in value.
There are other factors driving the good times, too - including a tight market for housing. Interestingly, this is another thing created by Democrats via their controlled demolition of supply chains, which has led to an unprecedented and ongoing shortage of materials needed to build new homes. This has increased the value of existing homes to a degree not seen since the Housing Bubble of the early 2000s.
Only this time, there's equity in those homes - for those who hold title to them. They have seen their net worth increase - and some have drawn on it to do things such as launch a start-up business and hire people to work for them.
Things could be worse, of course - and the Democrats are working hard to make them so. But millions of Americans have never had it so good. You just wouldn't know it - if all you listened to were Democrats and their media barkers.
