The Economy - What benefits have you seen? (1 Viewer)

My last raise was right at the very beginning of the Trump presidency. It was a "normal" raise. Nothing special. The tax cut had me bringing a little more in take home, and my overall tax burden was a bit lower. However, prices have shot up, especially housing. I haven't seen a net gain.

My only real gain was my wife finishing college and joining the work force. And I am trying to position myself for another promotion. I've been checking off all the right boxes lately, so we'll see. But that has nothing to do with the economy. That has to do with my drive.

I've seen my company grow and do well, but I haven't seen it translate into the workforce. Anyone else? I'm sure small business owners would see it a bit differently.

My husband owns his own “very” small business (one person). He hasn’t seen any sort of net gain. I think because his business is so small it didn’t really reap any of the benefits.

I haven't seen any benefit or detriment.

I've been fortunate to do pretty well under every President and Congress. Nothing spectacular, just a steady growth in income and net worth.

My 401K would very much like to thank the economy of the last two and a half years!

Directly attributed to this administration? The large check I had to write to the IRS last Spring.

I’ve seen people of means buy up property, taking 100s of rentals off the market and creating rent increases that have no relation to cost of living

I assume that benefits someone

yuyi64 said:

My 401K would very much like to thank the economy of the last two and a half years!

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Only 2 and a half years? What were you doing wrong the previous 8? Serious question. We've been on the longest bull run in history. If you're only just now getting on the train why?

I've seen a net negative, actually.
The caps on property taxes and the near-elimination of home-office deductions has left my tax burden higher than it was before.

UncleTrvlingJim said:

Only 2 and a half years? What were you doing wrong the previous 8? Serious question. We've been on the longest bull run in history. If you're only just now getting on the train why?

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That and the S&P was down for 2018 so not sure why the past 2.5 years were so special for him. Maybe a good company match helped overcome the ~4.3% decline of 2018. Idk. I’m in the category of not having seen any personal benefit. Or nothing better than in the previous several years.

t_rav_82 said:

That and the S&P was down for 2018 so not sure why the past 2.5 years were so special for him. Maybe a good company match helped overcome the ~4.3% decline of 2018. Idk. I’m in the category of not having seen any personal benefit. Or nothing better than in the previous several years.

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UncleTrvlingJim said:

Only 2 and a half years? What were you doing wrong the previous 8? Serious question. We've been on the longest bull run in history. If you're only just now getting on the train why?

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It grew prior to 2017, just not as quickly. As for t rav's 4.3% decline in 2018, he must have been doing something wrong because mine grew nicely in 2018 without any increased company match.

t rav said the S&P was down for 2018, not his own investments, so I’m not sure where you got that.

And a quick google shows he is correct:

yuyi64 said:

It grew prior to 2017, just not as quickly. As for t rav's 4.3% decline in 2018, he must have been doing something wrong because mine grew nicely in 2018 without any increased company match.

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I’m not seeing an uptick in the rate of growth:

MT15 said:

t rav said the S&P was down for 2018, not his own investments, so I’m not sure where you got that.

And a quick google shows he is correct:

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Interesting. I wonder if those are the adjusted numbers. Maybe I looked at the unadjusted numbers.

yuyi64 said:

It grew prior to 2017, just not as quickly. As for t rav's 4.3% decline in 2018, he must have been doing something wrong because mine grew nicely in 2018 without any increased company match.

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I'm not sure that's true for the market as a whole (about it growing slower). Annualized growth of the S&P 500 is slower (but still very good) since 2016 than it was for Obama's first 3 years, and it doesn't look like it's going to catch up.

And that's not a knock against Trump. Obama inherited an economy in free-fall so it's easier for the market to grow once that was stabilized. Trump inherited a good economy with a long bull market. It's hard to expect substantial growth under those conditions.

My wife owns a dance studio and we are up from 130 kids after the BP oil spill (that hurt us) to almost 220 kids this year. Pretty good indicator that our local economy is doing well.

yuyi64 said:

It grew prior to 2017, just not as quickly. As for t rav's 4.3% decline in 2018, he must have been doing something wrong because mine grew nicely in 2018 without any increased company match.

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Is that because your company stock grew in value more the last few years or your overall portfolio?

Also, steady % growth, while the balance grows, feels like faster growth, by the nature of compound interest being an exponential growth model.

I work for a very large US company in a very technical field... this past year was my best year ever in terms of Pay Raise, Company Stock, 401k returns, and my first real bonus since 2008... that's just my personal experience, but this year was the 1st time in almost a decade where everything went on a significant rise.