Metro Denver readers who saw from the Census Bureau have good reason to feel heartened.
Median household income was up substantially in 2014.
The poverty rate was down.
And of course we already knew that state unemployment, which has been subsiding for some time, dropped below 5 percent this year.
The problem is that metro Denver isn’t the nation — and it isn’t even the rest of Colorado. And meanwhile, the nationwide trends on income and poverty are much more sobering.
Indeed, those trends go a long way toward explaining the present appeal of certain populists and ersatz populists on both the political left and right — politicians and activists who generally peddle ideas that would mostly aggravate the very problems they claim to be addressing.
Nationally, both median income and poverty remained essentially flat compared with 2013. And that means middle-class incomes still haven’t fully recovered from the Great Recession, which officially began in 2007.
Meanwhile, the poverty rate of 14.8 percent in the recent Census report remains well above 2007’s 12.5 percent.
So the recovery that has been underway since 2009 has been alarmingly anemic — despite a strong second quarter — and Americans have every right to be worried.
On the right, demagogues like Donald Trump respond to this anxiety by blaming trade agreements and immigrants for stagnation.
On the left, progressives like Bernie Sanders call for a wholesale expansion of government programs as a cure. In all, Sanders “backs at least $18 trillion in new spending over a decade.”
Trillion is no misprint. The daunting tax hikes or deficits that would be needed to finance such spending would almost certainly stagger the economy — a danger Sanders simply dismisses.
Americans are right to be worried about the state of middle-class incomes, which have been flat for too long. But they should be looking for candidates who understand the importance of economic growth and increased productivity to future income gains, and who avoid scapegoating or simplistic claims that if something is costly, like college or health care, it can given to everyone for free.
That doesn’t mean candidates ought to kowtow to the wealthy. A fairer, growth-friendly tax system, for example, would limit or eliminate many deductions and credits that go mainly to the well-to-do.
Concerns about middle-class incomes are justified. But not every alleged solution is equal, and some of those getting the most attention in both parties’ campaigns would be positively destructive.
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