What’s Thwarting Philadelphia’s Crime Cleanup

The new mayor’s work is being undermined by District Attorney Larry Krasner

WSJ editorial. 

"Philadelphia’s Democratic Mayor Cherelle Parker took office a year ago with a law-and-order mandate from voters, and a priority has been cleaning up the troubled neighborhood of Kensington. The local press is complaining that crime persists there, but blame progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner for undermining the mayor’s and police department’s work.

The day after she was sworn in, Ms. Parker issued an executive order to shut down the open drug markets in Kensington. Her office soon published a strategy to “attack the decades of open-air narcotics trade, addiction, homelessness, violence, and criminal activity” that plague the neighborhood. As part of an enforcement push that began in June, 75 officers assigned to Kensington have worked to shut down homeless encampments, make narcotics arrests and promote public order.

The effort is yielding results on gun crime. During the pandemic, the northern half of Kensington was the second-worst neighborhood in the city for shootings and murders. This year it’s on track for the fewest shootings in a decade, city statistics show.

Ms. Parker’s critics complain that the cleanup hasn’t made enough of a dent in vagrancy, drug use and other offenses that degrade quality of life in Kensington. But the mayor and police can’t address those without the DA’s help. Mr. Krasner, a progressive prosecutor elected with funding from George Soros, favors a soft-on-crime approach.

In a report last year, Mr. Krasner touted his record of “reducing wildly excessive incarceration” and probation sentences for “convicted Philadelphians who are mostly Black and brown.” As of last week, he’d charged 4,645 drug offenses in 2024, down from more than 13,300 the year before he became the DA.

“Larry Krasner’s lack of prosecutions for theft, drug-related offenses, and quality-of-life crimes has made Philadelphia less safe overall, with Kensington being the most tragic example in our city,” says state Rep. Martina White, a Philadelphia Republican. “A District Attorney’s office unwilling to hold criminals accountable continues to undermine public safety and hinders community revitalization efforts in places like Kensington.”

The Democratic primary election for D.A. is in the spring. Mr. Krasner has hinted at seeking a third term, in which case voters will have to decide whether to keep a prosecutor who tolerates lawlessness in Kensington and beyond."

The Price of Rivian’s $6 Billion Rescue

The company vows not to oppose the UAW at its Illinois factory

WSJ editorial.

"Government money always comes with a price, and now we are learning what Rivian Automotive’s is for its recent $6 billion loan from the U.S. Energy Department. The struggling electric-vehicle manufacturer will subject its workers to union domination.

President Biden in September issued an executive order directing agencies to prioritize projects that promote “positive labor-management relations” with “agreements designed to facilitate first collective bargaining agreements, voluntary union recognition, and neutrality by the employer with respect to union organizing.” Want government money? Better surrender to the unions that back Democratic politicians.

Rivian has been tangling with the United Auto Workers union that wants to organize its employees. Bloomberg News reports that Rivian has now struck a so-called neutrality agreement with the UAW that commits the company not to oppose unionization efforts at its factory in Illinois. While the deal doesn’t take effect until the company reaches certain profitability and other metrics, it greases the wheels for future unionization.

Ford Motor likewise struck a neutrality agreement with the UAW at its new Tennessee EV plant that let the unions organize workers through a card-check process rather than a secret-ballot election. The Energy Department recently finalized a $9.6 billion loan for the Ford-SK On battery joint-venture in Tennessee and Kentucky.

One risk for the companies is that the union’s costly demands make it harder to make money on EVs. Rivian lost $107,043 on each vehicle it sold during the first nine months of the year. Ford is losing about half as much on each EV. Both are struggling to compete with Tesla, which is profitable and not unionized.

Rivian executives project that the company could soon become profitable thanks to sales of credits to manufacturers struggling to comply with EV mandates. But such credits will lose value if the new Trump Administration rolls back the Biden greenhouse-gas emissions standards and yanks a waiver for California’s EV quotas.

In agreeing to the union neutrality agreement, Rivian is undermining its chances of future success on which the Biden crowd has bet $6 billion. Industrial policy inevitably puts political demands above economic or commercial priorities, as taxpayers may learn the hard way with Rivian."

The Not-So-Secret Way Around U.S. Tariffs

Cabinets made in China were rerouted through Malaysia and ended up in U.S. kitchens—sparking a Customs probe and splintering an American industry

By Inti Pacheco of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Haiyan [Chinese company Qingdao Haiyan Group] had been accused of sending Chinese-made cabinets to the U.S. by shipping them through Malaysia, masking the origin of the goods—a scheme known as transshipping."

"Haiyan and other Chinese companies have moved operations or established new facilities in countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia or Thailand, where they can send raw materials to make goods. Some companies have used these countries as temporary holding places where they can mask the origin of goods"

"In recent years, CBP has found transshipment schemes used to obscure the origin of mattresses, solar panels, nails and quartz countertops. In 2023, CBP prevented importers from evading $500 million in duties following investigations"

"Sullivan, the Cabinets To Go owner, said that in July 2021, an inspector that he hired in Malaysia to check on his supplier saw a container full of finished wooden cabinets arriving at the facility. The boxes had labels saying that the cabinets had been manufactured in Malaysia but the inspector traced the container and found that it had just arrived from China, Sullivan said.

"A month later, a Haiyan employee told Cabinet to Go executives that a shipment of 13 containers that was on its way from Malaysia also had cabinets or components that had been manufactured in China."

Joe Biden Tried To Use the Regulatory State To Micromanage Everything

The Biden administration's war on "junk fees" is emblematic of its nanny state instincts

By Elizabeth Nolan Brown of Reason. 

"On domestic regulatory issues, Biden has shown initiative and a willingness to go above and beyond what is called for. It's too bad that's the opposite of what a good presidential job performance entails. The ideal candidate here is someone unwilling or unmotivated to find new outlets for regulation, but the Biden administration has proved all too eager to expand the regulatory state's reach.

Take Biden's obsession with "junk fees," by which he means basically anything a business charges for perks (such as checking bags during a flight) or as penalties (like bank overdraft fees). Such fees can serve important and legitimate purposes, but Biden has framed them all as simple points of corporate "greed." Because it can't directly eliminate them, the administration has decided they must be disclosed in particular ways—saving Americans from the pain of, say, having to read about cable costs in two separate lines instead of one.

It's silly, sure, but it exemplifies the administration's belief that basically any area of business is fair game for federal regulators. And Biden's business micromanagement extends way beyond fee disclosures.

Following Biden orders, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) outlawed noncompete clauses (a rule a federal judge has already rejected as the FTC overstepping its authority) and adopted a proposed "policy of greater scrutiny of mergers."

The Department of Labor proposed a rule that would make it more difficult for people to work as independent contractors and another that would greatly expand the number of workers eligible for overtime pay.

Biden has also tried to use executive and regulatory actions to override state policies and private property rights. For instance, he directed the Department of Health and Human Services to declare that a federal Medicaid rule means hospitals must perform emergency abortions even in states where they are banned. He also wants to make it easier for the feds to seize pharmaceutical patents when politicians believe prices are too high.

Biden claims such moves are about things like promoting competition and protecting reproductive freedom. But even if those are the end results—and it's often quite questionable—they accomplish those things by substituting the judgment of the federal government for the judgment of employers, employees, consumers, state lawmakers, and everyone else."

They Helped Create DEI—and Even They Say It Needs a Makeover

The seeds of a backlash were sown when companies turned diversity into a corporate fad

By Callum Borchers of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Some of the most visible steps that businesses took after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 turned out to be ineffective, according to Harvard sociologist Frank Dobbin, whose research on racial and gender disparities in management is often cited as evidence for robust diversity programs. Those pledges companies made to fill certain percentages of leadership roles with women and people of color? Besides being legally risky, the goals seldom materialized, he says.

And the unconscious bias training that was supposed to produce antiracist allies? Turns out people hate being told they have hidden prejudices.

Dobbin’s research with fellow sociologist Alexandra Kalev found that diversity-training programs commonly involve unconscious bias tests for employees—rapid-fire word-association exercises with white and Black faces, for example. The drills push people to confront evidence of the invisible bigots living inside their brains. 

Instead of feeling energized to improve, though, participants often respond with shame and anger.

“They tend to walk away from it thinking they’ve been accused of something they’re not really guilty of, which is the whole history of the United States when it comes to race and gender,” says Dobbin. “It really pisses people off.”"

"Little wonder the backlash against DEI, led by activist Robby Starbuck, has been so forceful, he says."

"The argument that more diverse leadership teams are directly linked to greater profits has come under fire. Still, companies know they risk missing talent if they don’t actively recruit a range of people, says Fayruz Kirtzman, a senior client partner at Korn Ferry who advises companies on using DEI to help the bottom line.

She says a lot of businesses stumbled in recent years by publicizing demographic targets. Intended to keep companies accountable to the numbers, the goals were easily misconstrued as reverse discrimination.

“By the time the message trickles down, it’s heard as, ‘They won’t hire a white guy,’” she says."

A New Year’s Resolution for the Federal Reserve

It should embrace clear monetary-policy rules and explain its reasoning for departing from them

By Jason Furman. Excerpts:

"the humans in charge of the central bank should be required to establish consistent operational principles and explain their reasoning when they depart from them.

At the end of 2023 the median Federal Open Market Committee member expected that 2024 would bring economic growth of 1.4%, core inflation of 2.4% and three cuts in the federal-funds rate. Instead the economy is on track for about 2.5% growth and 2.8% core inflation. With the economy much stronger than expected and inflation more persistent, the Fed should have scaled back its rate moves."  

"insofar as the Fed has substituted its judgment for rules, the rules look better than the judgment. The Fed wouldn’t have needed so many supersize hikes in 2022 and 2023 had it followed any version of a Taylor rule, which would have called for rate increases starting in 2021 based on inflation and the unemployment rate. The initial progress on inflation in the second half of 2023 would have led to an earlier adjustment in rates without the need to catch up with a supersize cut in September 2024."

"the Fed should pick one rule, or a suite of rules, and publish what it would dictate at every FOMC meeting. If the committee chose a different course than the rule or rules would recommend, it would have to explain what judgments led it to do so."

"to the extent the Fed departs from its rule over time, it must do so without prejudice. It is always too tempting to find excuses for why rates should be lower rather than higher. At any given time that may be true, but it adds up to an inflationary bias in monetary policy."

"Placing more weight on rules at the Fed could solve several problems. It would make monetary policy more predictable and understandable, reducing market volatility and enabling better investment decisions. It could also avoid the biases that have crept into the Fed’s decision-making in recent years."

Raimondo Says Holding Back China in Chips Race Is a ‘Fool’s Errand’

By Alexander Ward and Asa Fitch of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says efforts to restrict China’s access to technology hasn’t held back the country’s progress"

"“Trying to hold China back is a fool’s errand,” she said in an interview."

"The administration has also pushed forward with efforts to block Chinese companies from buying chips from American firms or semiconductor-making components, and urged U.S. allies, including Japan and the Netherlands, to join in the effort to restrict Beijing’s access to the technology."

"efforts to keep sensitive technologies out of Beijing’s hands remain important, but export controls amount to little more than “speed bumps” for China’s own push toward global technological dominance."

"Raimondo said she agrees there are regulations hindering American competitiveness"

"Biden administration’s rollout of the Chips Act is facing hurdles. Much of the funding intended to boost manufacturing has gone to large chip makers, including Intel, which qualified for nearly $8 billion in federal grants. But Intel has been struggling to catch up with foreign manufacturers"

"China has continued to acquire or locally build machines that make chips despite the export controls placed on many of the country’s companies, including 140 new ones earlier this month."

Don’t Succumb to Fatalism—or Mercantilism

Governments needn’t inflict economic harm on their own citizens

Letters to The WSJ. 

"Greg Jensen concludes that “we are all mercantilists now, and the implications are profound and unavoidable” (“We Are All Mercantilists Now,” op-ed, Dec. 13). The implications of the world-wide turn to mercantilism truly are profound, but if enough people resist the fatalism that seems to afflict Mr. Jensen, this turn isn’t unavoidable.

A good start is to recognize that many of the facts on which mercantilists today rest their case are, in reality, false. For example, mercantilist sympathies in the U.S. today cannot, contrary to Mr. Jensen’s claim, be explained by “lost domestic manufacturing jobs” as a result of the rise of China’s economy. As a share of total nonfarm employment, manufacturing jobs peaked during World War II and have fallen steadily ever since. Since China joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001, the average monthly decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs as a share of nonfarm employment has been slightly lower than was this monthly decline from the end of World War II until China’s membership in the WTO.

While it’s true that “each time another country adopted mercantilist policies, it pushed others to react similarly,” nothing is inevitable about such reactions. They are chosen, and they’re unequivocally foolish. If more people understood that mercantilist policies damage all economies that adopt them, each government would be less inclined to inflict economic harm on its own citizens simply because foreign governments inflict economic harm on their citizens.

People of good sense will warn of the dangers of mercantilism rather than succumb to Mr. Jensen’s fatalism.

Prof. Donald J. Boudreaux

George Mason U., Mercatus Center

Fairfax, Va.

Much like the dinosaurs in the op-ed’s cover art, mercantilism is an idea best left in the past. Mercantilists would have us believe that what makes us wealthy is the amount of money we have. But this can’t be the case. Tom Hanks’s character in “Cast Away” would have fared worse, not better, if a crate of money had washed up on shore instead of a volleyball.

Mercantilists have the relationship between imports and wealth backward: Imports are the benefit of production, not a cost to it. Mr. Jensen understands this perfectly fine in other contexts. He exports investment advice to his clients each day. In return, he imports food from the grocery store, electricity from the power plant and internet from the cable company. It isn’t the exporting that makes him wealthy; it is the ability of his household to import goods and services that makes him so.

If we want to see Americans continue to flourish, we need to increase their access to goods and services, not hinder it. To do this, we must lower barriers to trade, not erect new ones.

David Hebert

American Inst. for Economic Research"

U.S. Life Expectancy Turns Back Up

As Covid deaths fall, the expected average lifespan rises to 78.4 years

WSJ editorial. 

"Some good news as 2024 nears the end: Life expectancy in the U.S. last year made an unusually sharp increase as deaths from most major causes declined, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Americans can expect more longevity gains in the future—as long as Washington doesn’t introduce harmful policies.

Life expectancy in 2023 rose 0.9 years to 78.4 while the overall mortality rate adjusted for age declined 6%. Death rates among all age groups fell, and more sharply for middle-aged Americans and seniors. A typical 65-year-old can expect to live another 19.5 years, up from 18.9 years in 2022.

The large rebound in a single year owes largely to a decline in Covid deaths as the pandemic receded into the past. Covid deaths last year were roughly the same as those from the flu during a bad flu season. Death rates from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and unintentional injuries (e.g., drug overdoses) also declined.

It’s true that U.S. life expectancy is still lower, and deaths from most causes somewhat higher, than before the pandemic when it reached an overall average of 78.8 years. But that’s because of an increase in chronic illnesses, which may have been exacerbated by the pandemic lockdowns. Forced to stay home, many Americans ate and drank more and used more drugs.

The Biden Administration claimed credit for the lifespan increase because drug overdoses declined slightly in 2023. Perhaps political attention to the fentanyl scourge is making a difference. But overdoses were still 50% higher last year than in 2019. The truth is that the Administration’s “harm reduction” policies—e.g., distributing sterile needles and opioid-overdose medicine naloxone to addicts—have failed to reduce addiction.

A common lament on the political left and right is that the U.S. has a lower life expectancy despite spending more on healthcare than most developed countries. But America also has more chronic disease and drug addiction, which aren’t from failings in private healthcare. Americans have access to more treatments than any country in the world.

This is why U.S. cancer survival rates are higher than in most developed countries and continue to improve. Personalized cancer vaccines and CAR T-cell therapies have shown potential to treat deadly cancers like pancreatic and glioblastoma. GLP-1 medicines like Ozempic could help extend lifespans by reducing obesity, diabetes and even drug addictions.

The policy risk is that government drug price controls will discourage innovation. Expanding government control over healthcare isn’t the way to make Americans healthier."

Rent Control Is Squeezing Landlords in D.C. Suburbs

See Wall Street Landlords Loved These D.C. Suburbs. Rent Control Ended That.: Montgomery and Prince George’s counties limit rent increases to the lower of either 6%, or 3% plus the inflation rate by Rebecca Picciotto of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"In July, Montgomery County and Prince George’s County enacted laws that limit rent increases to either 6%, or 3% plus the inflation rate, whichever is lower."

"the new laws restrict rent increases not just on apartments where tenants are living but also on vacant units"

"Multifamily transaction volume in both counties was down 13% in the first three quarters of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023"

"“There’s no question that [the rent restrictions] had more than a chilling effect,” said Scott Melnick, president of Montgomery County-based brokerage Melnick Real Estate Advisors."

"institutional investors have been deterred by the perception of a more aggressive regulatory environment and its uncertainties."

"“The goal should be creating more units of affordable housing,” said Barry Altshuler, Equity Residential’s executive vice president of investments. “Numerous studies have shown that rent control does not accomplish that goal.”"

"multifamily transactions in Montgomery County and Prince George’s County declined 80% this year compared with 2023"

"housing economists often warn that rent restrictions can scare away developers and investors, choking off new supply and renovations and worsening affordability issues."

"“In general, rent stabilization programs don’t end up helping the people that they are intended to help,” said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS, a real estate technology company."

"For now, the biggest beneficiary may be apartment building owners in northern Virginia. In that other hot spot for government commuters, multifamily transaction volumes over the first nine months of this year are 155% higher compared with the same period in 2023.

Northern Virginia “is now being considered a top-three market nationally for institutional multifamily investment,” said David Leopold, senior vice president and head of affordable housing at commercial property lender Berkadia."

Merit and the Case for Immigration

Most of the high-achieving U.S. students to whom we award college scholarships have foreign-born parents

By Phil Gramm and Robert Topel. Excerpts:

"Once we make our selections, we ask for more biographical information as part of our counseling support. When the process is complete each year, the most common characteristic among recipients is that both parents were born in a foreign country. This was true of 62% of the recipients in 2024, about three times the share that would be expected if the students were drawn at random from the nation’s schools. Another 9% had one foreign-born parent, while only 29% had both parents born in the U.S. Parents of this year’s recipients came from China, Guatemala, India, Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and Vietnam. Not surprisingly in Texas, 20% of foreign-born parents were from Mexico.

These extraordinary numbers raise the question: Why did a majority of high-school seniors chosen on merit come from families with immigrant parents? Part of the reason is that foreign-born parents are on average poorer and more likely to meet the foundation’s income requirement. But there’s more to it. Based on research from the Institute for Family Studies, immigrant households are more likely to have both natural parents in the household. Also, their children were less than half as likely to have recorded behavioral problems at school, and were much less likely to have ever been expelled.

But immigrant households also predominantly spoke a foreign language at home, were much more likely to live in poor areas or areas with high minority populations, and were less likely to own their own home. The overwhelming majority of Welch Foundation scholarship recipients attended public schools—often subpar ones—though they were more likely than other students in their neighborhoods to attend charter schools. But perhaps the most significant finding is that 91% of all immigrant parents nationwide expected their children to graduate from college, and 59% expected them to pursue graduate or professional degrees."

"Immigrants bring new energy to America, and their drive to succeed has been a powerful force for American progress."

Xi Digs In With Top-Down Economic Plan Even as China Drowns in Debt

Xi Jinping is bracing for a showdown, sticking with economic policies aimed at making China the world’s most powerful country

By Lingling Wei of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"much of China’s growth under his watch was driven by unsustainable borrowing, real estate speculation and investments in factories and infrastructure the country didn’t really need. Difficult reforms that could have unlocked more durable growth, such as steps to increase consumer spending, were neglected in favor of policies designed to bolster Communist Party control."

"China is drowning in debt, reeling from a property bust that wiped out trillions of dollars of household wealth, and verging on a deflationary spiral. Growth has slowed, Western investment has collapsed and consumer confidence is near a record low."

"He’s convinced that his top-down approach to managing China’s economy" . . . "offers the best path for China"

"What Xi hasn’t done, many economists argue, is take hard-but-necessary steps to fix the country’s wounded economy."

"it hasn’t acted decisively to clean up the troubled property sector, fully restructure local-government debt, and significantly increase consumption, which would support growth in the long run."

"“A lot of the problems are of the government’s own making,” said Richard Koo, chief economist at Nomura Research Institute. Like many economists, Koo believes China faces what he calls “a race against time” to address the country’s mounting growth problems before it slips into a long-term downturn, made worse by unfavorable demographics."

"over the past decade covering China as Xi had opportunities to fix its economy, just as previous Chinese leaders did when they faced economic turbulence. Every time, he took the fork in the road that led to more state control, and away from the kinds of changes that many Chinese economists say are necessary."

"The Xi leadership let China’s property bubble inflate for years, even though it was clear the market was overheated. Although Xi finally popped the bubble in 2020, restricting credit to overleveraged developers, Beijing still hasn’t come up with a comprehensive plan to clean up the mess. Tens of millions of units sit empty and the market continues to languish."

"By this year, local governments had taken on as much as $11 trillion in off-the-books debt to build transit systems and other projects, including many that failed. The borrowing made growth look better in the short term, but leaves China more vulnerable to financial instability."

"Yet household consumption makes up only about 39% of gross domestic product in China, relatively unchanged in recent years, compared with around 68% in the U.S."

"China could slip into a deflationary spiral—the kind of disaster that befell the U.S. during the Great Depression—if more urgent steps weren’t taken to rejuvenate growth."

"China could fall into a vicious cycle of falling prices and weak demand."

"China handled economic challenges more assertively before the Xi era. 

In the late 1990s, when China suffered from overproduction and deflation, then-Premier Zhu Rongji forced weak state-owned enterprises to close or merge, resulting in massive job cuts but also making the remaining companies stronger."

New England relies on oil to keep the Christmas lights on

By Paige Lambermont of CEI.

"Oil, and the refined products that it produces, has many uses for which it’s incredibly well suited. Being burned in power plants that generally rely on natural gas isn’t one of them. New England is continually plagued by its lack of sufficient natural gas pipeline infrastructure and cold temperatures often require gas plants to run on backup oil because home heating has priority claim on the limited gas.

This Christmas, New England’s grid, ISO New England, is once again relying on oil to make up the difference on the grid. Two years ago, amid freezing temperatures on Christmas Day, the largest source of power generation on the New England grid was oil. There was also a significant amount of oil on the grid on the 23^rd and 24^th.

This year, the New England grid was 12 percent oil on the 22^nd, with lower but still notable oil use on the 23^rd and 24^th. Seven percent of ISO New England’s resource mix was oil on December 24th.

Writer and power grid expert Meredith Angwin, who lives in Vermont, consistently points out when the power mix in New England includes oil. In her book, Shorting the Grid, she has a chapter called “Oil Saves the Grid.” This chapter outlines the incentives that have led to oil being used in the region’s natural gas power plants when natural gas is unavailable. As New England has relied increasingly on natural gas for power, it has failed to make concomitant investments in natural gas pipelines.

Oil is comparatively expensive as a fuel for power plants and does not burn efficiently in these scenarios. Oil fuel for power plants is almost exclusively used as a stopgap during times of high demand, and for good reason.

New England should take these occasions as a reason to invest in new pipeline capacity, especially as the Jones Act’s requirements that vessels be US-owned, built, crewed, and registered to move goods between two US ports make it nearly impossible to move liquified natural gas (LNG) between US ports because there are no LNG tankers that meet these requirements. This means that pipelines remain New England’s best option for timely LNG delivery.

Although pipeline development is a fraught issue that involves federal, state, and local government action and regulation, New England states would be wise to remember the importance of these pipelines to their ability to keep the lights (and heating) on during cold winter nights."

Americans Are Getting Richer, Part II

By Dan Mitchell. Excerpt:

"Two years ago, I expressed guarded optimism about the economy and government policy.

…we don’t need perfect policy to get more prosperity. The economy simply needs “breathing room,” which will exist so long as politicians don’t get too crazy about over-taxing, over-spending, and over-regulating. After all, even small differences in annual economic growth compound into big changes in living standards.

I followed last year with my Sixteenth Theorem of Government, which said the same thing but hopefully in a more pithy and memorable way.

Today, I want to show that the economy actually is innovating faster than government is suffocating. I already did this in 2021, but let’s look at some new data.

We’ll start with this chart from Professor Chris Freiman of West Virginia University. As you can see, data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve shows that average inflation-adjusted income in the United States has been rising over time.

In other words, the hockey stick is still heading in the right direction.

Could income be growing faster? Of course. That’s why I’m always complaining about bad policies (punitive taxes, wasteful spending, excessive red tape, cronyism, protectionism, etc).

By the way, the above chart shows “median” income rather than “mean” income, which means the numbers are not influenced by very high incomes for a handful of rich people."