Still not recovered from 2008

By some measures, though, people in their prime working years have a long way to go to recoup the losses of the 2007-09 recession -- and white men are further behind than most. On average over the three months through March, a nonseasonally adjusted 86 percent of white men between the ages of 25 and 54 were employed, 2.3 percentage points (or about 1.1 million jobs) short of the average level in the 10 years before the recession. That's a larger shortfall than any other group -- including black men, whose employment-to-population ratio stood 2.1 percentage points, or 156,000 jobs, short of its pre-recession level (though their baseline was much higher).

To be sure, the extra 1.1 million out-of-work white guys aren't necessarily the same people showing up at Trump rallies. That said, middle-aged white males' progress toward economic recovery has been protracted enough to generate a good deal of frustration.
The malaise goes far beyond the political. Most of the prime-age jobless don’t show up in the unemployment numbers because they aren’t actively looking for work -- and in many cases are already on disability. If they don’t get back into the labor force, their absence could permanently impair the economy's capacity to grow.
Whatever happens, middle-aged white men are a demographic group to be reckoned with, numbering about 48 million (not including those in the military or in prison). The more they feel left behind, the stranger U.S. politics may become.

Pre-2008: We were on borrowed money/time

Americans lost so much in 2008 — jobs and homes, incomes and wealth — that the recession still dominates the public mood three elections later.
They lost something else too, something less talked-about on the campaign trail: a credit lifeline. For households before the crash, borrowing made good times better and hard times bearable....
Between 2000 and 2007, borrowed money was adding about $330 billion a year to Americans’ purchasing power, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. By 2009, households were diverting $150 billion to pay back debt — a swing of almost half a trillion dollars, even without counting the impact of lost jobs.
Enter Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

That macro picture doesn’t tell the whole story, though.
Debt —and the ability to repay it — aren’t distributed equally. Especially after the subprime lending boom, the lower-income groups have the heaviest debt burden, according to New America’s study. That’s one reason deleveraging is weighing so much on the recovery. It takes cash away from the people most likely to spend it.
For many Americans, the end of the credit cycle was jarring. Lifestyles had been built around that extra cash, and people just hadn’t realized it could disappear, according to Diane Gray, a vice president at Navicore Solutions, a nonprofit financial counseling service in New Jersey....
She’s noticed another trend that may be more troubling, though. Before the crisis, customers would take out unsecured loans — typically more expensive than mortgages or auto financing — for perks such as vacations. Now, they’re often being used to cover basic living expenses.

Trump is damaging the GOP brand

A recent CNN poll, for example, showed a steady decline in the public's estimation of Republicans over the last year. Last August, 54 percent the poll's respondents rated Republicans unfavorably. By this March, that number had risen 7 percentage points to 61 percent -- as negative ratings of Democrats were falling by 3 percentage points.
In contrast to the Republicans, Democrats are looked at quite favorably by the public. In the Bloomberg poll, 51 percent gave Democrats a favorable rating against 43 percent unfavorable, the party's best numbers in seven years.
And the Republican brand is in trouble across the board. Independents, by a margin of 63 percent to 28 percent, regard Republicans less favorably than the public at large. Geographically, there is a negative majority even in the strongest Republican region, the South. In the Midwest, unfavorable ratings outnumber favorable ones by more than two to one.
Bad feelings toward Republicans have intensified among women, which many polling experts attribute to Trump. By two-to-one margins, women, including married women, where Republicans usually do better, give the party unfavorable marks.

Basic Income is better than minimum wage

Sweden, along with some other countries with big social safety nets -- Denmark, Norway, Switzerland -- doesn't have a legally mandated minimum wage. Instead, the minimum salary is collectively bargained. The country's strong unions and socially responsible employers make sure that, at 20,000 kronor ($2,468) per month, it reaches about 64 percent of the average wage -- more than twice the U.S. rate....
The immigrant problem is just one illustration of why it may not be a good idea for governments to try to regulate the labor market instead of pursuing their ultimate goal -- that of making sure people aren't "dying on the street," as Donald Trump likes to put it. It's dawning on politicians in some countries that tying basic subsistence to work through the minimum wage is not the most logical way to achieve social justice.
These countries are experimenting with a universal basic income that will be paid to all, whether they work or not. A Finnish government working group tasked with trying out the scheme proposed parameters for a pilot project on Wednesday: Up to 10,000 people are to start receiving 550 euros ($627) per month next year. Finland's economy is struggling -- it's still smaller than it was in 2008 -- but the government calculates it can provide a basic, secure income to its entire population by cutting up the current benefit system.
Other countries looking at the scheme include Canada, where the province of Ontario is starting a pilot project this year, New Zealand, where the second biggest party in parliament is interested in adopting the idea as part of its platform, and the Netherlands, where four cities are piloting basic income programs. In June, Switzerland will hold a referendum on universal basic income, but the chances of success there are rather slim.
The idea is radical and it sounds like money for nothing to many people, but it has more of a libertarian flavor than a Communist one. By guaranteeing basic survival, a government provides a service as necessary as, say, policing the streets or fighting off foreign enemies. At the same time, once this service is provided, the government can get out of trying to regulate the labor market: Its goal of keeping people fed and clothed is already achieved. The Finnish government believes the basic income scheme will encourage the currently unemployed to take part-time jobs, which they avoided for fear of losing their benefits.
Many people may agree to work for less than the current minimum wage, and on more flexible terms, if they're supplementing a guaranteed income, not scrambling to avoid having to beg for food...
It's not the government's business to tell private companies how much they should pay their workers. It is the government's business, however, to help citizens feel less precarious and more secure. Businesses and wealthy individuals may well be prepared to trade the end of wage regulation and other rigid labor market rules for the higher taxes that may be necessary to make basic income work.