Americans Are Getting Less And Less Of Their Money From Their Jobs

[randymarsh]

http://www.businessinsider.com/non-labor-income-rising-2014-6

At first I thought this was going to be about how we've started investing more or people have started their own side hustles. I was going to be pleasantly surprised. Then I read it and felt like the picture was kind of bleak.

Transfer payments have increased (besides social security) and more people receive rental income. I'm not sure if either of these are good or bad. I suspect transfer payments have gone up due to many people finding themselves locked out of higher paying jobs that require more education or training. It's good (I think) that people are investing in real estate by providing rentals.  But I wonder if it demonstrates that increasingly you either have capital or you don't.

[Jack]

Microeconomically speaking, it's good for the real estate investors. It's probably bad for most of the transfer payment recipients, because I suspect the increase is due more to lack of alternatives rather than an increase in government "generosity" (for lack of a less politically-charged word).

Macroeconomically speaking, I think it's all bad because of both the "haves vs. have-nots" aspect and because neither transfer payments nor rentals, beyond some minimum, provide additional net "product" to the economy. (Some minimum amount of transfer payments are beneficial because they prevent some temporary issue from snowballing and destroying a person's long-term productive potential, and some minimum amount of rental housing is beneficial because it allows people to be transient and flexible. If you go much beyond the minimums, however, the marginal benefit diminishes.)

[arebelspy]

Interesting data.  Not only has percent of income from wages fallen, but so has receipts on assets (which I'm assuming is investment income).

Thanks for sharing!