To -- several elected officials -- from Ben Leet
Mariposa, California
February 10, 2026
Affordability: the powerful logic to increase wages across the spectrum
I am an amateur economist. I've written a blog for 15 years, Economics Without Greed, Part Two. I am sending a letter to my elected representatives and to other public leaders and candidates. I'm disappointed that my ideas are not taken up in the public arena. But they should be.
http://benL88.blogspot.com is my URL.
Affordability is the main concern. Your job as a public servant is to restore a middle class and alleviate the inequalities of income and wealth. I’ll run you through some studies that show that more than 40% of Americans are living on the edge.
A little over 40% of Americans are not secure in their finances. The study “Making Ends Meet”, November 2024, from the consumer Financial Protection Bureau, shows that 42.3% of adults say that after 30 days they could not pay normal expenses if they lost their main source of income. They have little in savings. The same report says that 80% of adults have credit cards, but half of those with credit cards have “revolving” accounts, they do not pay off the entire monthly bill. That would be 40% of U.S. adults not paying off the bill, and 20% more without credit cards. The PNC Bank’s recent study claims that 67% of workers live paycheck to paycheck, and 68% report to be "very or somewhat stressed about their finances. A discussion of this 60% or 67% living paycheck to paycheck can be found here.
Some 41.5% of households have incomes below 200% of the Official Poverty Level which is well under the survival budget of several reports on income fragility (U.S. Census, Poverty in the United States, 2024, page 12). The Federal Reserve asks in their report “Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households” what is the maximum emergency expense you could afford? The maximum amount for 52% U.S. adults is $2,000. That’s about 130 million adults without adequate reserves. The Federal Reserve’s report Flow of Funds states that $186 trillion is the “total household net worth”, and that would be about $715,000 per adult (assets minus liabilities to determine net worth). It should sound absolutely bizarre that the average net worth per adult is over $700,000 but half can’t afford an emergency expense of $2,000. Similarly, the total national income is above $25.4 trillion annually, and that is very close to $100,000 per year per adult.
What are you going to do about it? Will you pay attention to the gravity of the problem? Most economists do not, in my opinion, and most politicians ignore it. I’d like to see a shift in awareness and concern. I’ll pass through various statistics in this essay, but I’m heading for the main goal of describing the pervasive personal and financial insecurity of close to a majority of U.S. citizens.
Over the past few days I've looked at the job creation rate of Trump's first 11 months, 2025, compared with Biden's rate during his last 3 years.
For instance, the level of new job creation:
During Trump's twelve month 2025 period (January to January) the average monthly
growth of new employment
was 30,000/month.
The rate for 2024 was 103,000/month. -- 3.4 times the rate of 2025.
The rate for 2023 was 189,000/month. -- 6.3 times the rate of 2025.
The rate for 2022 was 398,000/month. -- 13.2 times the rate of 2025.
(https://data.bls.gov/toppicks?survey=ce)
Trump fired 256,000 federal employees in the past 12 months (Fed Fred: All Employees, Federal), that amounts to an average of 21,300/month. If he had fired no federal workers his average monthly job creation would still between 13% and 50% the rate of the last 3 Biden years, a very bad record.
Biden's years saw the U3 unemployment rate drop from 6.4% to 3.2% and rise to 4.0%.
During Trump's 12 months in 2025 the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%.
Fortunately, the employment to population rate for ages 25 to 54, prime working years, is relatively high in both presidents’ years. Jared Bernstein's yearly assessment provides more detail about the state of the job market. And this report from the Economic Policy Institute shows wage gains even more clearly.
During Trump's 11 months, January to December, about 75% of new jobs have been lower-paying nonsupervisory jobs. The Job Quality Index at NYU Buffalo (November 2025, page 2) shows the portion of good to not-good jobs -- new full-time year-round jobs. The "nonsupervisory worker" entails 82% of all U.S. workers, 110 million.
Their average yearly income is $56,020; the 44% who earn higher than average earn $76,560, and the 56% who earn lower than average make $38,787 yearly. Three of four new jobs in 2025 fell into the lower 56% group.
Low paying work is the worst, most enormous drag on the U.S. standard of living since 1973.
The "average weekly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers" were higher in 1973
than in 2025 (see the bls graph here: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000031)
notwithstanding the 144% growth of the economy (adjusted for inflation and per capita, -- Fed Fred: Real Domestic Product Per Capita) That is zero growth in wages for 80% of workers, 144% growth for the economy. Something is wrong. The word "stagnation", or the phrase "wage stagnation" does not capture the ugly reality.
Prices go up, families strain to meet expenses, most people cannot save.
The median age for buying a first home is now 40 years old, the highest on record.
Labor’s share of the national income has dropped to its lowest since 1947 (and see Fed Fred graph here).
Capital’s share of income has risen from 32.2% to 41.7, up 9.5%, since 1987. Concurrently Labor’s share of income has dropped from 67.8% to 58.3%, a drop of 9.5% (see here and here). And 9.5% of income is $2.77 trillion that once went to workers and now goes to financiers, shareholders and speculators. That would be a loss of $25,650 per household for all among the lower 80% of U.S. earners.
I emphasize that a fairer distribution was achieved in the past, and it is more than possible for the future, it is imperative.
The survey "Making Ends Meet", November 2024, created by the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, shows that 42.3% of respondents do not have sufficient savings to pay for normal expenses for more than 30 days. That shows they have almost no savings.
The United Way charity conducts a yearly research study, ALICE, that has concluded for several years that about 42% of Americans live with hardship, or an income well below their meticulous survival budget drawn up by the United Way.
The prestigious Brookings Institute shows 43% of all U.S. families “fall short on meeting basic needs.” The Federal Reserve continues to ask if the respondent can pay off a $400 expense in 30 days; the answer is that 37% cannot, and 52% cannot pay an emergency expense of $2,000. The Census' Poverty in the U.S. report shows, page 12, that 41.5% of Americans live with incomes below 200% the Official Poverty Level.
The Census also conducts a periodic Pulse Survey (Spending Table 1), and about 45% say that the recent inflation surge caused "very stressful" conditions, another 25% said "moderately stressful", another 21% "mildly stressful", and only 6% said "not stressful at all."
Inflation is not so much the problem as low-paying work. The RAND Corporation found that the median worker's income was $42,000 in 1975 and had grown to $50,000 in 2018, up $8,000. Also they claim the median income would be $92,000, a gain of 50,000 (not $8,000) had wages grown at the rate
that national income had grown. Much of what I'm saying can be found in a recent article in the American Prospect, "The $79 Trillion Heist" by Harold Meyerson.
What is my main point? Politicians and pundits are far removed from the reality many U.S. adults face.
Affordability is the issue.
The profits of all "nonfinancial corporations" in 2019:Q4, pre-Covid, were $1.1055 trillion (see Federal Reserve, Flow of Funds, page 10, line 10). These nonfinancials earned 6.0% of the national income. Exactly five years later, 2024 Q4, profits were $2.8752 trillion and they were 11.9% of national income. Adjusting for inflation profits rose by 112%. The median family income rose by 0.6%, from $83,260 to $83,730, up $510. (Real Median Household Income, Fed FRED)
Pre-tax profits more than double in five years, and inflation surges in the 3 year period of rapid inflation, higher than any inflation since 1982. How is that possible? If profits double while prices were inflating, then obviously the mark-up had to exceed the rate of inflation. Which it did. See the study "Prices, Profits and Power" by Mike Konczal at the Roosevelt Institute. There are many other career economists who add to this story: Isabella Weber at UMass Amherst, Servaas Storm at INET Economics, to name a few.
Corporations saw an opportunity to raise their prices; they experienced supply bottlenecks combined with ultra-high consumer savings rates (household savings rate went from a normal 5% to 7% rate to around 18%, bea.gov interactive Table 2.1 line 35). Covid kept people from shopping and kept suppliers from delivering. But when the vaccine was distributed families flooded back to stores with pent up demand. This was when inflation began to surge, and companies saw the opportunity to raise prices higher than ever.
In short -- I took too long in laying out all the above -- the nation needs help with family income growth.
Affordability
is the short name. We could impose a very high minimum wage, say $25 per hour, on the 2,000 largest American companies; they employ on average above 20,000 employees. The total employment of these huge companies is over 40 million which is about 1 in 4 working Americans. They distribute over 90% of their profits to shareholders, not to workers whose wages were higher 53 years ago (see William Lazonick at INET Economics).
It's time for candidates, elected officials, and would-be leaders to focus on the big social problem.
I have an essay, December 2024, which deals with "Solutions".
That's enough for this time. My blog has more, Economics Without Greed, part Two, http://benL88.blogspot.com
Thank you for reading. And may you succeed in your responsible role. Ben Leet
I am retired, I live in Mariposa, California.
