PopJustice News Network (PJNN): U.S. Politics Channel

Of course that's what he looks like.

 

Jabba the Hutt lookin ass.

 

two more and we got the whole fucking ninja turtles in the senate

 

Billy Long get an actual neck challenge. Do that challenge.

 

Yeah, seems like the type to keep women chained up without consent.

 

Serving A24!!

 

fhgkjsdfgfdg they are messy af for using that photo

 

I'm scared and sad as we go into June. I feel many of our rights are going to get stripped away during the next 30 days. The Supreme Court making these controversial rulings also serves as an effective distraction from the January 6 hearings.

Basically, the rich are just going to continue to monopolize power and resources while the working class barely survives.

Also, The Orange One is apparently going to officially announce his 2024 run very soon.

Things just feel increasingly bleak.

 

Prayer candle for the primaries in California today. We can’t have Caruso as mayor.

 

Yeah, reading the news over the last few weeks especially has left me feeling so desolate. Gas is at an absurd all time high, food is fucking expensive, rent keeps going up while wages stay the same, people are absolutely drowning everywhere you look. I've done well for myself but in a single income household now, I feel the water pooling at my ankles and it's terrifying. Instead of doing literally fucking anything about it, politicians are arguing over whether it's morally sound to ban children from drag shows. Take them to church!!!! they say, even though they have a higher likelihood of dying in a church than they do at a drag show. And it's happening in the state where elementary school children were just murdered at school. This is so fucking exhausting.

I'm sorry that I don't have anything important or helpful to add. Is there even still the tiniest bit of light at the end of the tunnel? I'm genuinely asking because I don't know anymore and it's become nearly impossible to weed out all of the horror. What do we focus on right now? How do we keep pushing forward?

 

I'm also in doom and gloom mood, but I thought this was a little encouraging:

 

One doom/gloom thing I've been thinking a lot about: housing is rapidly becoming my top issue/priority. Rent and home prices are simply obscene, and the whole system just serves to consolidate wealth and drive housing insecurity. My cousin's landlord isn't renewing her lease after like 5 years of paying on time, etc. and, because rents have risen so much, she can't afford to live in the same area. She's considering moving back with my aunt and uncle, but it's like...they live a thousand miles away and she has two grade school-age kids. How can we expect people to uproot themselves because of an irrational system that's rigged against like, what, 80% of Americans?

 

Please explain this all to this B-average liberal arts major (who never took a stats or economics class in his life.) Who do the blue, green and red lines represent?

 

My bad. Red are people at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution (more or less the "poor"). Blue is 90th (more or less the "rich"), and green is 50th (median/middle class). The line is always in comparison to Feb. 2020, when Covid hit the U.S.

Essentially, wages for people at the bottom are better than they were when Covid hit, while wages at the middle are about the same and at the top are worse. Because wages at the bottom are better and wages at the top are worse, inequality (the gap between the two) has decreased.

 

Thank you! That's interesting because, throughout the pandemic, I feel we've read so much about how wealth has increased for those at the top -- the "professional class". Was that more about property and investment income than wages? Do you know what income ranges cover each of those three definitions? I guess I don't have a sense of what specific wage ranges 10th percentile vs. 50th and 90th translate to. (Sorry for peppering you with questions.)

 

I agree, the situation is spiraling out of control. Even in B-tier metro areas like Atlanta, Austin, Denver, etc. that were once reasonably affordable, we’re seeing rents skyrocketing. I feel like we’re basically fucked for the next decade dd. Even if by some miracle there were a huge initiative to build high density housing all over the country, how long would it take for things to improve when people need help right now? Nevermind that building that type of housing is illegal in much of the country due to single family zoning laws, and that homeowners are incentivized to vote against any new housing developments.

 

Looking up this info quickly, people at the 10th percentile are probably making around 10k per year, 50th percentile around 40-50k per year, and 90th percentile 125k per year. They could be working in any job, though people at the 90th percentile probably disproportionately work in professional occupations.

I’ve used CPS data before and this is probably just income earned at a job before taxes and other deductions. My guess is the sample includes people working any number of hours (so, full or part-time) for any number of weeks a year (so, full-year or seasonal/temp/contract). Self-employed people are probably excluded. I doubt property and investment income is included, and might matter more for wealth than income anyways. Wealth isn’t measured as much as income in general, for various reasons.

Also, the top 1% (and higher) of income earners (not necessarily of “wealth-havers”) likely isn’t captured very well in this figure. First, it’s a small group, so there aren’t many data points in the total sample. Second, usually top incomes are “censored” or altered so researchers can’t identify who the survey participants are. It’s a data privacy/confidentiality thing.