Fictional income growth and bullsh*t numbers
After six years, President Obama finally had something to brag about - median income had risen above the level they were at when he took office. He went on the campaign circuit for Hillary to tout those numbers.
“Republicans don’t like to hear good news right now,” Obama said in his campaign appearance for Hillary Clinton Tuesday, “but it’s important to understand this is a big deal.”
There is no doubt that the report was impressive. In fact, median income went up in 2015 by the most ever.
The number is such a blowout that it gives me some pause.
I don't recall 2015 being such a great year for the labor market, or economy in general. The voters also have a different impression of the economy.
It's weird.
It got even weirder the very next day when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their own report.
Average weekly wages for the nation decreased to $1,043, a 0.5 percent decrease, during the year ending in the first quarter of 2016. Among the 344 largest counties, 167 had over-the-year decreases in average weekly wages.
How in the Hell do you reconcile a) strongest median income growth in history, with b) falling average weekly wages?
Something is amiss.
President Obama and most of the news media forgot to mention the BLS report.
The key to figuring this out is in the fine print.
Note the bottom of that graph where it says "Redesigned income questions".
What does it mean?
Fortunately, someone else did the hard work for me.
The second knock is that Census moved the goal posts. Starting in 2013 with a partial phase-in, which was fully implemented in 2014, Census changed the questions and the methods in calculating household income.
For example, Census, starting in 2014, began to “collect the value of assets that generate income if the respondent is unsure of the income generated.”
Also, the government started to use “income ranges” as a follow-up for “don’t know” or “refused” answers on income-amount questions.
There are plenty of other changes — but with just these two, income levels reported could be noticeably higher, say 5.2 percent higher, without the actual income being 5.2 percent higher.
In the fine print, Census admits the change. “The data for 2013 and beyond reflect the implementation of the redesigned income questions.”
"Value of assets" is not the same as income. And if someone refuses to answer the income question, you don't fill in the answer for them.
It's not honest.
From what I can tell, this isn't actually a Census Report at all. It appears to be coming from Sentier Research, which is a private group.
The numbers in their report differ from the Census Bureau's in three key respects:It is a monthly rather than annual series, which gives a more granular view of trends.
Their numbers are more current. The Census Bureau's most recent is the 2014 annual data released in September 2015.
Sentier Research uses the more familiar Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the inflation adjustment. The Census Bureau uses the little-known CPI-U-RS (RS stands for "research series") as the deflator for their annual data.
Median incomes may have gone up in 2015, or they may not have. If they did go up, they may have only gone up a little.
Either way, the so-called "Census Report" which isn't, can't be taken at face value.
Comments
That's some prime
shit shining there.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
Everything is Great!
Who are you going to believe? Semi-pseudo-official reports where we insert the data we want, or your own lying eyes?
Great insight gjohnsit
Essentially median income growth a lie. Inequality is still growing and the middle class shrinking. Very not good.
The political revolution continues
It is truly a bullshit lie.
My non-scientific method of gauging how the economy is doing? I look around. I don't care what the administration's number say, I don't like what I see. I also don't like what I feel. There's something out there. And it ain't good.
"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey
There's Something Out There
[video:https://youtu.be/xcLPrJu_7Ss]
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
This is the key point
+90% of the time that "asset" is going to be housing. So what they've done is substitute the housing price inflation for the actual rent being collected.
That's not the same thing, and also overstates rental income.
On the flip side, the housing affordability crisis is crushing the working class (as I've pointed out repeatedly), but it's being spun here as a good thing.
In spite of these bogus numbers, median income still below 2007
and when the latest numbers fall back to earth, it will be a good time to talk about the lack of recovery for the 99%
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
These people seem to have no shame
I saw that report on the front page of our Houston Chronicle and didn't even read it to know it was total accounting behind-the-knees-cream stuff. Thanks for taking the time to ferret this out for us.
That same front page had nearly half-page pictures of Clinton Syndicate members subbing for Hillary. They reported her "pneumonia" as absolute, irrefutable truth. Disgusting.
I got tired of trying to tell people that this 'median'
income crap includes the wealthy too.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
It was broken down by deciles when I saw it
And the gains for the lower deciles were as they claimed.
But as gjohnsit points out, it doesn't matter how you break it down if the year to year measurements are completely different kinds of fruit...
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
median income crap
More to the point, it includes all income alike.
The "median income" is just simply the mid-point of the range. If ten thousand people are bringing home $100 per week and five people are bringing in $1,000,000 per week, the median is still $500,100/week -- even though, in the theoretical group being considered, there's no one making anywhere near the "median" (i.e., no sensible "discrete median" exists in this group).
The figures which tell the honest truth about the state of the economy are the ones the government and the mainstream media flee from as if chased by ravenous rabid wolves: the mean income (which has been sinking like a lead Zeppelin, especially in constant dollars, since the Nixon Administration); true unemployment and underemployment figures (the ones which count workers who don't qualify for unemployment benefits any more but still need real jobs); etc.
09/15 19:30 edited to put the "c" in the word "income" in the title
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Another good thing to watch:
the percentage of the GDP that goes to wages.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It sure is
This is one of the things Picketty goes into in his book.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
You have confused median and mean
In the example you give, the median is actually $100 but the number you compute is the mean (or average).
Median is actually a better summary statistic for skewed/non-Gaussian distributions like income.
The problem with the government numbers is not the statistic used, but the fact that it was not computed the same way from year to year. That is a more subtle form of deceit, which is why it's so great that gjohnsit had tracked it down for this essay.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Confusion
You are correct about the median being $100/week, but the number provided isn't the mean either. In the example 10,000 workers earn $100/week. Together they earn $1,000,000. Five people earn $1,000,000/wk totaling $5,000,000. Altogether you have 10,005 people combining to earn $6,000,000 per week. $6,000,000/10,005=$600. The arithmetic mean is $600. I can't figure where the number $500,100/week comes from.
the median
Not quite.
The non-discrete median is simply the middle of the range, without any other considerations being applied.
If the range is between $100 and $1,000,000, then the range between the two figures is $999,900; the median point is halfway between the two (from Latin, media), and therefore is the point located at $(100+499950) or $599,950. (I apparently did get it slightly off; my apologies.)
It must be emphasized that the number of discrete data points is not relevant to a non-discrete median such as always is the one quoted by governments when they want to look good. The simple range median, such as I just discussed, is always the best one for that purpose, as it hides the "everything going to the 1%" the best.
The only "standard" (i.e., simple arithmetic) averaging process which weights the number and distribution of data points correctly (or anywhere near it) is the mean. In my example, the mean is:
10,000 at $100 = $1,000,000
+
5 at $1,000,000 = $5,000,000
----------------------------------
10,005 at a total of $6,000,000; dividing the total into equal shares yields a mean of $599.70.
Of course, I deliberately chose examples the real world never provides; i.e., there were no data points except at the extremes, none in the middle. I did that to point out that even in such skewed ranges as I used, there's still a range median to be had -- even though it was meaningless, as gjohnsit correctly points out.
My apologies for any misunderstandings I may have caused.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I must have gotten confused somewhere but...
"If the range is between $100 and $1,000,000, then the range between the two figures is $999,900; the median point is halfway between the two (from Latin, media), and therefore is the point located at $(100+499950) or $599,950."
Wouldn't the median be $500,050?
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Mode is a good meaure at this point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(statistics)
I'll bet the mode is on the down low right now.
As for mean vs. median here is a good discussion using real net income numbers from the Office of the Chief Actuary at the federal government's Social Security website:
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
I always get the two confused.
This little rhyme helps me; maybe others will find it useful:
"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." - Mark Twain
Love that!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
NOW you tell me!
I put my wife through Grad School. As I ended up doing her statistical calculations (she couldn’t figure out how the required software program ran), It would have been nice to know this back then. Maybe I'd have come up with valid results instead of discovering that the premise didn't work.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
You said it so much better than I do. Maybe that's why I get
the 'look' trying to explain why, if one side of any given set (i.e. wage earners and total income) is weighted more heavily on the top or the bottom, you have to use median average rather than mean because the mean average (adding all income and dividing by the number of wage earners) shows what each person would have if things were divided equally. Median is just another way of making the economy look good when in truth only a small percentage of the economy is making those big bucks. Median 'average' makes it look like all earn a hell of a living.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Fudging statistics is really bad policy
The problem is that the government has been fudging statistics by changing the methodology as a benefit to the then current administration. The problem becomes when government makes decisions based on these now fudged numbers. If you screw with reality, it will come back to bite you on the butt. We have seen all of the prime measurements distorted, GDP, unemployment, inflation. How do you know how your economy is doing if you don't have consistent numbers and how do you act on it? Should the Fed now raise the prime rate because median income is up?
Looking at the chart of medium income change per year, and the fact that this was a poor GDP growth year, I would estimate that medium income has had a negative growth this year.
The thing is, too that it stinks of politics. It has the look and feel of an inside job. Someone inside the Obama administration decided that it would look really good to finish out his term with rising medium income numbers, to counter the meme that income disparity is growing, and to get Clinton II elected.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
The BLS agrees with you
Funny how almost no one mentions the BLS report.
We've had 3 straight quarters of GDP growth of less than 1%.
I believe that some agency in late 2017 will declare that we actually had a recession in 2016.
Economists say a recession is overdue
If we're not in a recession now, it's coming soon.
"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
Yep it was under clinton that the fudging of CPI
comparisons were made like hamburger for steak and a whole bunch of bad comparisons just to keep inflation low so they wouldn't have to pay
out on "entitlements" which of course we pay for, no it's not a handout as
those in DC like to say.
http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpigm02.htm
There was a name us traders used to have for it, but for the life of me my brain fart is lasting way to long and I can't think of what that name was. -g-
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
It's Great PR Though, and a Strong Short Term Business Plan. nt
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Always take "good" reports
Always take "good" reports with a large lump of salt. Mine is usually a mega-dumper truck sized variant. they fudge unemployment as well as median income which is not REAL income, or Net Income, and Net Income is what you have to actually work with once the taxes and other things are taken out.
Unemployed numbers forget about the folks who for whatever reasons did or could not get unemployment. And it stops looking at those whose unemployment ran out. So if they say 5% unemployment, it is usually far high between 10%-15% just as an example. And of course under-employment is counted as part of the employed. So that would be low wage paid workers at 20-30hours a week and not 40+ hours as that is becoming fictional work hours for so many. More households sit at 40k or far lower near the 20k income.
There seems a desperation for the Obama admin to leave on a high note to show the Reps how wrong they are. I am personally tired of the lies of both parties.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
Obama says
You got a raise America. Go shopping!
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Far as I can tell--
America hasn't gotten a raise since 1973. But I could be wrong on that, working from memory here.
I do have a link for this, though:
Take a look at the second graph--
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/08/09/business/economy/Higher-Pr...
Of course, that's only through 2010. Let's see if we can find some more recent statistics:
Well, here's one that goes up to 2012:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/10/business/economy/us-companies-thrive-a...
"Before the figures were revised, it appeared that wages and salary income in 2012 amounted to 44 percent of G.D.P., the lowest at any time since 1929, which is as far back as the data goes.
But the revisions cut that to 42.6 percent, which matched the revised 2010 figure as the lowest ever."
Well, I found one article that dealt with later than 2012--took us up to 2014--but it's making the "it's the bad robots' fault, sonny!" inevitable automation argument that somehow ignores the reality of sweatshops, human trafficking, and the exploitation of both forced and (semi)-voluntary immigrant labor.
If you guys want to read it, it's here, but I don't trust people who make that argument.
Automation is, perhaps, a problem of sorts, but not it's not the cause of poverty or income inequality anymore than the existence of migrant workers from Honduras is.
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-labors-gdp-share-is-on-decline-2015-9
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Another thing that distorts the statistics
Household income has been distorted upwards since the 60s as more and more women entered the labor market. Household income from the 1960s and early 1970s was often from a single wage earner.
When I first saw the numbers, I thought BS and have been
waiting all day to hear what the facts are before I would lend them any credence. Thanks!
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Obama loves re-engineering statistics
by changing the calculation. He did the same thing to the unemployment rate by no longer counting people who stopped looking for work. Thus his proclamation that he fixed the economy for us. Thanks for the new math Obama, but you economy still sux.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
I think the unemployment rate has always been.calculated thus,
People only count if looking for work. I could misremember but I don't think that started with Obama. Although of course he uses it to his advantage.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Unemployment rate
Currently the US government uses the U-3 definition for the unemployment rate. Previously the government used the U-6 definition. I don't know when the change came about, but it was well before Obama.
The U-6 definition of unemployment includes 2 groups as unemployed that are excluded or considered employed in U-3:
1. Discouraged workers who have given up looking for work.
2. People working part-time who desire to work full-time.
The US used the U-6 formula to calculate the rate of unemployment during the great depression. Comparing U-6 figures for the Great Depression with U-3 figures during the 2008 meltdown is grossly misleading and understates the severity of the recession.
No faith in any of the institutions.....
This can't go on much longer.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
If I may rephrase that so as
If I may rephrase that so as to be more pointed, to: no institutions worthy of faith?
The people destroying democracy and the planet don't care about the collapse of everything, imagining that they can take the drained-up money and run somewhere there are no people to rise against them and where unlimited pollution and ecological die-off and effects from nukes will not reach and lack of regulation will not affect their stocks/money/food and other products... we should never vote for lunatics to run the asylum.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
But Big Brother has raised our Victory Gin ration again?!?
How can you not love him?
More Verification from Baseline Scenario, an Economics Blog
Baseline Scenario isn't too impressed with this 5.2% figure either. Kwak's take:
"But, and I don’t think Jason Furman would disagree, this is not particularly strong evidence that everything is rosy, or that 'America is already great,' as some would have it. As many people have pointed out, median household income in 2015 was only back to its 1998 level. Actually, when you take into account a methodological change in 2013, it’s still 5% below its 1999 peak."
The link provides the annual change in median household income since 1985, ranked highest to lowest. The annual change during the recovery (2010-2015):
2010 -2.6%; 2011 -1.5%; 2012 -.2%; 2013 +.3%; 2014 -1.5%; 2015 +5.2%
Additionally, Kwak says we're due for a recession and one data point does not make a trend. He is not impressed with the median American family income during this new century.
https://baselinescenario.com/2016/09/14/yay-were-almost-as-rich-as-we-we...
Kwak doesn't question the numbers . . .
But even if you accept that the numbers are probably correct, it still stands that the median wage is less than it was 16 years ago. That's really remarkable. And not in a good way. The trends for the past 16 years are terrible.
This wage stagnation is happening at a time when education, health care and housing costs have grown exponentially. So even if you adjust for core inflation, even if we were just maintaining flat wage growth, in a very real way people would feel poorer.
It was Bill Clinton in the 90's that changed...
how we calculate the CPI (Consumer Price Index).
But hey,
that's par for the course, don't like the numbers, or the facts about a war or how it's going, just make that shit up and tell it as loud as you can, over and over and over.
When I saw those headlines reading the "net", I was like
that's Bovine Droppings...
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
honest cattle manure
That's an insult to honest cattle manure!
The headlines of which you speak, and those like them, will do nothing for growing plants.......
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Sorry RR I just posted that the scumbucket
changed the CPI back in the 90's, before reading you post.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
For me, another indicator is much clearer...
Food Stamps went down...at least in Michigan, but I do not doubt it happened elsewhere. Granted it only went down $3/mo, but it went down a few months back also and a few months before that.
To me that indicates that there are fewer people paying the taxes that go into supporting the food stamp program. Fewer food stamps means less food buying. Less food buying means reduced working hours at groceries. Reduced working hours means fewer people paying taxes...
And Walmart is about to start replacing workers with robots. They are starting with automated grocery carts. This tends to boggle my mind becasue it would be so much easier to build robots to replace finance/numbers people that it is to make one to do physical work.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Using this logic...
there are fewer people paying the taxes that go into supporting the war(s). And yet there is no shortage of war nor money thereof. How does that work?
Enjoy every sandwich. (ripwz)
The US borrows the money for its wars.
most notably from China. It would never do to help the poor with borrowed funds.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Of course, if they wanted to--
the bankers could invent another, say, 16 trillion or so, like they did at the Fed when they needed to bail themselves out.
The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.
John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it came, Where it Went p. 29.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I can't remember the last time
that the govt. put out numbers that were believable. I think it's universally
believed among traders of the world that all numbers released now are only meant for show.
Wasn't it clinton that changed the formula for calculating CPI screwing those on SS?
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Janet Yellen did it under the Clinton Administration
In 1997, Bill Clinton made Janet Yellen ( current Fed chairman) Chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Affairs. One of her first acts was to create the Chained Consumer Price Index-chained CPI. Although it was not applied to Social Security benefits at that time, it was under consideration by the Obama administration to do so. Some Democrats raised hell and Obama backed off it. I wonder how long it will be until it pops up again? It will virtually eliminate any raise for Social Security benefits.
http://www.muncievoice.com/10402/evolution-cpi-since-reagan/
"I wonder how long before it pops up again"
My guess if her heinous wins, is in the first budget as part of another "grand bargain".
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Smoke and mirrors.
I heard the report, twice, on the radio. I thought, well, this can't be possible. Then I said, oh yeah, my household income went up in 2015 because we went from living on my retirement alone (an impossibility), to both of us getting full-time jobs. Our income probably increased by 45%. Then I said, but we're not really making more money, it's that we have just enough bills to warrant this type of income to live. What is even more frightening is that we got some unexpected expenses over $2,000, which added to our already strained situation. We're on the road to recovery, now, finally paying on a weekly basis til it's finally paid. This was my first indication that something was amiss with their happy little news.
It's all smoke and mirrors.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Thanks for figuring this out!
I just figured household, combined income, lots of people lose housing, adult kids living with parents, four or more workers in same house of course household Income goes up but individual income could still be falling.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Yes!
I have no doubt that you've put your finger on part of the explanation.
Nice catch!
The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.
Yep, key words "household income"
considering in the 60s and 70s most households had one wage earner, now there are multiple wage earners in many households.
About 6 weeks ago I heard Fareed Zakariah blaming low wages
on those evil Robots, which have replaced all those formerly well-paying manufacturing and other jobs. Since Robots don't need lunch hours, potty breaks or vacation time that makes sense, right? Then he said this is the same thing going on in other places such as South Korea (he named a couple of others). He completed his pro-corporate spin by saying that industrial economies all over the world are being "hollowed out"--damn those pesky Robots. Now of course those low wage robots are only a tiny fraction of the answer. The answer is that disappearing national boundaries under "free trade" have made it impossible for countries to defend themselves by corporations off-shoring manufacturing and other well-paid jobs. I used to respect Zachariah but now think he is about as objective as Paul Krugman
Zachariah and Krugman can take a long walk off a short pier
as far as I'm concerned. And they can take Clinton loving Robert Reich with them.
Basically, the middle and lower classes are totally defenseless from the jackals and hyenas of the right AND left.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Ha! I knew those
numbers were horse$h!t when they were first "released." I knew the same way everyone else knew. Our own two eyes. And our crap paychecks. The Economy™ is up? You're full of crap, Bam Bam. And you know you're full of crap. We all know you're full of crap.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Gee...
I have tens of thousands in available credit lines, can I count that as income too? Whoopy - I got a HUGE raise!
Democrats, we tried to warn you. How is that guilt and shame working out?
"Value of assets" is not the same as income.
Amen!
My house somehow went up in value, but I'm not making that much more from my job to account for that increase. Yet if this is how they are calculating my wealth, it looks like I'm better off then I was a year ago - even though I still support four adult relatives who can't win full-time jobs no matter how much they apply.
Heck of a job, Barry!
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.