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

[wardorican]

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.

 

[V Chip]

It’s really interesting that conservatives saw little to no growth between 2008-2016 but have seen increases better than ever since, and their taxes and benefits from Trump tax cuts are all positive...

That liberals have seen great growth 2008-2016 and good but not quite as good since, and have seen mostly ill effects of the tax cuts...

And the market analysis shows strong but not great growth since 2016, and tax analyses show mixed but mostly underwhelming tax cut effects.

 

[wardorican]

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.

Oh, up until September, my 401k has looked great. But it's been looking great for the past 6-7 years.

I've been receiving solid bonuses the last 6-7 years.

Again, if I get any sort of boost this year, it will be because I earned it working on a high viability project and helping out a few key Directors / VP's.

I look at a lot of our hourly folks and the only ones that have seen a good raise are the ones that threatened to quit.

the company is doing great, but they're still tight wads.

 

[Indy2019]

Our company saw great growth in 17 and 18. We’re really focused on growing so I think it has nothing to do with who’s president. But this is a record number of people employed with salaries rising. This is a great situation for any president. Trump’s lucky but it hasn’t helped him much in the polls.

 

[wardorican]

Our company saw great growth in 17 and 18. We’re really focused on growing so I think it has nothing to do with who’s president. But this is a record number of people employed with salaries rising. This is a great situation for any president. Trump’s lucky but it hasn’t helped him much in the polls.

A question and a comment.

Are salaries rising at your company? Beyond the usual 3% a year? I haven't see much. A lack of strong wage growth (to make up for lost time, really), has long term effects. Without strong wage growth, the US consumer can't keep the economy churning.

I think the problem is that Trump introduced so much uncertainty in the market this last year. Tariffs for Chinese goods and European goods, most in particular. It's caused a cost shock that hasn't been predictable.

YTD, the stock market (I'll use the S&P500) is up a decent amount, but really has leveled off since the Summer of 2018.

 

[MT15]

Ward, if you’re getting 3% that’s better than we are seeing at my company. We have averaged 2% for the last three years.

 

[Sharon]

Hey, I got my first raise in ten years! Whoo hoo! Of course, it doesn't cover the rise in expenses for even one of those years.

 

[Ayo]

The Canadian job numbers just came out and we have the lowest unemployment rate in 54 years. And many of these jobs are long term with middle and high income potential in earnings.

I listened to an interview with an analyst who was talking about the positive impact on the overall economy and he expects it to be robust.

and he contextualized it a bit relative to the stock market up here which saw modest gains and how the two aren’t totally related.

 

[wardorican]

Ward, if you’re getting 3% that’s better than we are seeing at my company. We have averaged 2% for the last three years.

I'd have to do the math, since we don't do "annual" raises. It's like every 18 months or so.

However, My previous employer was like clockwork on annual raises. Didn't matter when you hired in, we got it in the early spring. You could almost bank on 2-4% every year. Usually you'd hover around 3%. This was about 10-15 years back, and I'd assume they stayed the same, as it was a government contract.

Again, I've seen our company do very well. Overall, I can't complain too much, but I still see lagging pay, compared to prices. I haven't seen the economic gains translate to my gains. At least, not anything specific to the last two years. We get a bonus at the end of the year if we hit our metrics and financial thresholds. It can be up to 10% of your salary, but it's pretty rare to get 10%. I've gotten that once, about 6 years ago. But, ever year since then, I've hovered around 7-8%.

Personally, I expect more this year, since I busted my rear on an important, and high visibility project that was favorable for us, on top of my usual performance and role. We shall see. I've been pessimistic lately.

 

[zztop]

Theres not really a "wealth inequality" topic (that I could find anyways)
But came across this, and wanted to put it somewhere.

 

[coldseat]

Theres not really a "wealth inequality" topic (that I could find anyways)
But came across this, and wanted to put it somewhere.

Something has to be done about how CEO's are compensated with stocks as well. Employee's (as a whole) should have equal stock value as CEO's/management and should have a voting seat on the boards of all public companies.

 

[J-DONK]

Something has to be done about how CEO's are compensated with stocks as well. Employee's (as a whole) should have equal stock value as CEO's/management and should have a voting seat on the boards of all public companies.

They would use contractors to get around this. I'm not sure how you stop that. We should probably revisit the whole idea of using third party contracted employees for any company over 1000 employees. You have an HR dept, use it.

 

[UriUT]

Or, we can reverse the trend that these supply side bozo's policy and actually tax these corporations. These companies will argue that a salary ceiling will make attracting talents difficult. Well, fine have that, but pay your fair share of taxes. These corps cannot pay zero dollars in taxes, and in tesla's case get a 100 million refund. Another, we cannot allow for more monopolies and kill off unions.

I'm sick of dolts buying this crap about jobs creator and be left exploited.

 

[LA - L.A.]

They would use contractors to get around this. I'm not sure how you stop that. We should probably revisit the whole idea of using third party contracted employees for any company over 1000 employees. You have an HR dept, use it.

A few years back California set up rigid guidelines to prevent hiring regular employees as independent contractors to circumvent worker wages and protection laws.

The intention was good, but it ended up including a lot of talent and crew gig workers in the entertainment fields. It's disadvantageous to gig workers in the entertainment fields to have to be employed as employees. Competition and unions protect their wages and treatment. They've been tweaking the laws, since then. It's pretty effective at preventing companies from hiring regular employees as independent contractors.

 

[Heathen]

It’s definitely been much tougher for those in my field to get a job due to a saturated industry (tech). That being said, there still are so many jobs and places hiring, it’s dizzying.

I don’t really know if it’s anything to do with this administration (probably not) but I’m noticing inflation’s effect on our budget for sure.

That and we don’t plan to leave our home which we got a great interest rate on during Covid for at least a decade, so there’s that (we will probably rent it out and travel)