This morning with a question about your income, including questions about how you have been affected. Call has grown, you can call following numbers host on october 3 we will beginning more detail on the report, but this morning we will be hearing from a finance and markets editor at the publication produced by the atlantic. Good morning, matt. Thanks for having me. Host what did the senses report this week and what it say about this data the economy . Came out withnses their once per year update on median household incomes. This is basically the best ballpark measure we have for how typical American Family is doing. Right at the middle of the income distribution. The story is in great. It was basically flat between around 50,000. A percent below what we saw before the recession hit. 57,000 with the median peaked in 1999. Is holding back American Income . Why have we not seen a more robust increase in earnings when we have been in recovery for five years now . It seems to be a these aren of things already inflation it adjusted numbers. Inflation has been pretty weak, maybe a bit below 2 for the last year. That tends to eat into the income a little that. But it has been improving lately in terms of the number of jobs. Wage growth has remained persistently weak, that is the story here, too. You cover finance and markets. It seems like there is a disconnect between what we worse between what we are saying the average american is feeling and wall street. What is causing some of that disconnect . The relationship between the stock market and the real economy is always difficult to explain. One of the things the stock isket has been reacting to the Federal Reserve is undertaking the quantitative that areograms basically designed to push up asset prices. One of the things the fed has done is really push up u. S. Stock prices. Verynds to be forwardlooking, discounting earnings from corporate america, going out five to 10 years. It is important to note that these census, the numbers that they produce, this is just money income. Salaries, wages, things that pushed the put cash flow into american household. They dont take into account the remarkable runup of the wealthiest households. Were there any bright spots in this report at all . Is there anything that we can be happy about and point to in this recovery . There are a couple of things. The poverty rate declined somewhat. In 2013. The first the client and the poverty rate we have seen since 2006. Theres a big improvement in the number of children in poverty. Big, but significant. Numbers fell from nash numbers fell by 4 million children in poverty. There has been some improvement on that, largely attributed to people, working families who are able to work longer hours because of the improvement in the economy. Report seems to point of the data that shows that income inequality is increasing in this country. How worried should we be about that . How much does it impact the as you know, it has become a more important and prominent issue over the last couple of years. There was a book that came out from a french economist named thomas the caddy that makes the were getting close to levels of income in the 19thnd saw century during the robber baron era. Conclusive be pretty that a higher and higher share of wealth has been flowing to of all u. S. Income. That has risen terribly since the early 1980s. It was about 17 then. Flat. Is pretty much a fact, income inequality is getting worse. Measure, it was basically flat, but there are different measures of it. In terms of how it affects the economy, thats a bit different. We look a lot at public earnings and corporate earnings. You can clearly see corporate ceos talking about this issue if you look at companies that are tailored towards things like dollar stores, they have been hard hit over the last year or so, there have been new challenges in boosting their profits and sales. The ceo essentially said it has to do with the fact that these people are really strapped for money. They dont have a lot of money to bend. Other elements of that too. Mcdonalds has had a hard time. Cocacola has had a hard time, walmart has had a hard time. They depend on the American Consumer and large chunks of the populace are not flush with cash at the moment. Host many consumers are struggling. Matt, we appreciate your time. Caller thank you very much. As you mentioned, the Federal Reserve policies may have had some impact on the disparity that we are seeing between what is happening on wall street and in the real economy. Anthe Washington Post, opinion columnist writes exactly that, that they may have fed income inequality. Is the fedhow much to blame for this . The question is whether and how much that effect is offset by others. Generating higheryielding investments this year, he cited economists estimating that account holders have lost nearly 1. 2 trillion in Interest Income between august of 2007 and september of 2013 relative to the fed policies host what have you seen . You can call us, shows 51,900ort specifically in 2013, thats the median income. The poverty rate for the nation was 14. 5 percent, down slightly from 2012. The percentage of people without Health Care Last Year was 15 . We have joe from north youreston, South Carolina income is increased . Caller just talking about net. I dont see how anyone from the middle income down to the poor could have anything else. Since 2008 the price of goods, services, they have gone up, including gas, entertainment, close, food, even the value meal at wendys has gone up a few cents to make a difference. Since 2010 my Health Insurance ,remium has gone up every year wiping out the increases i have had an income. I have had a little bit more money, but it has gone negative because of the increase around the country. Thats what type of work do you do . Ler i am a legislation legislation legistition. What is that . Caller they have your projects there, your supplies on time, they are your supply line folks. Host is your industry growing or contracting . Caller contracting. Look at it from a military standpoint. As the war drew down, there was less of a need for logistics. We are getting to that topic later today. Appreciate your topics your call. Greg, you say your income has rain flat . It decreased at the beginning of the recession, now it is pretty much flat. The more pipeline jobs we have to the teamsters union, it is going to work up quite a bit. Host is that your field . Caller yes, maam. Host what have you seen in terms of cash . Caller food and fuel are way up. Just different parts, living in oregon, alaska, nebraska, kansas, there are huge price differences. Of course there are huge sales tax differences. The cost of living is pretty much the best in nebraska, but if it is aa, nonunion job you are not going to get ahead of the game, really. All right, thats greg, from oakland, nebraska. Annie, you say your income has gone down . Caller yes. Im a welder. You are a welder . No, you are from welder, texas. Caller yes. Married to a veteran, the disability benefits have completely disk completely decreased. Understand. R host what should be done to help boost the economy . Look atyou know, i cspan, that is the most of where i get my name my news. I think of the senators do their job in order to help all the people get a job. They wont vote on anything for anyone to even get a job. All right, thank you. Is next caller this morning chris, from connecticut. Your income has stayed the same since the recession . Caller yes, it has stayed about the same. Doesnt take into account like the first caller, who i believe was mentioning well, here in connecticut everything has grown up what a bit. Quite a bit. Grocerygs we buy at the store are smaller packages, smaller weights. I think that the government cpi data is highly manipulated. I think that the inflation rate is actually a lot higher. If i could make another point, if you dont mind, you were talking about the Federal Reserve earlier. I would love it if cspan spent some serious time discussing the pros and cons of the fed, trying to educate the viewers out there. Believe that what we are witnessing is the biggest wealth transfer going on right now in the history of this country. It is being done by the federal. Eserve janet yellen, our grandmother, we are supposed to believe she is looking out for our interests . This is six years of income inequality and it is just getting worse and worse every year. So. Host i want to leave it there, because we do actually have some comments from janet yellen that she made earlier this week. Corporation for Enterprise Development conference here and washington, d. C. , this is what she said addressing the issue. Twitter host on twitter we have this message host tell us about your income this morning. Is tim,r next caller from silver, california. He says his income has gone down. You are on the air. My income has gone down. I was a retired member from the city of los angeles for almost early years. 15 years in private before that. 45 years, not counting when i was in younger schools. I have an working since 65. I have got like 55 years or so of working. Even on the books when i was younger, i retired. There are early retirement incentive programs. Families with other agreements and caps when you retire. The most that you can get is whatever youre cap is. When you have people doing these minimumwage jobs, what happens to the people who retired . We are capped at a percentage, we can move up. You are saying that the benefits went down . Caller we worked all of those , we did a lot of overtime to make ends meet. When you retire you dont get overtime. They dont go by your total pay. They go by your base salary. All right that was ken, from california. The next dollars john, from st. Paul, minnesota. You are one of the first people who said that income had increased. Caller yes. Host tell us about that. Caller i retired and it is Investment Income. Host what are you invested in . Caller multiple things. Tot you have been able supplement the steady income you have received from retirement . Caller absolutely, yes. George, alamedas, california, saying his income has remained flat. Hi, im george, im from california. I am retired. I went to college and got a job. I went for 20 years in the private sector. Prices are down. See where people are complaining. Things are great in southern california. Host do you believe that your Retirement Benefits will last you as long as we need them to . Host i am 64 years old. My retirement will last caller im 64 years old and my retirement will last until i die. [laughter] host do you receive a pension . Caller yes. My Social Security will last until i die. Two thousand dollars per month in Social Security and disability. And then i get a lot like 3000, i dont see a lot of people complaining about it. Our next caller today is tim, calling from rochester, minnesota. I am the result of a lot of the downsizing that people did during the recession. It affected my income. Personnel, staffing professions, not a lot in the last five years. Host your industry is suffering from that . Yes, the industry looking for employees. Most of the time if they are hiring at all it is not in the professional ranks. They are mainly looking to start people on a parttime or contractual basis. There are traditional loyalties locate traditional loyalties associated with that. I tried to collect some furniture. I tried to do things the supplement it. It has been a tough road. Host all right, tim, thank you. What is your situation . How were you able to cobble sure you have . Caller i retired in 1999 at the age of 51. The money we had from our 401 k and savings. We sold our house from a high income area and moved to north carolina, which gave us more disposable income. All of the cell phones and Security Systems that you have , the higher taxes in north carolina. Host is it that your income group, or they are expenses increased decreased radically . The income did grow, i am making more money through investments that i did when i was working. Host next up is cecelia, who says her income has gone down. Cecelia, good morning. Caller i think that all of this stems from the inequality. My husbands store just cover to people who had been working there for 20 years for parttime work. Still needed more so they added more parttime people. I hear all of these people talking about retirement when you are making good with good wages and you could work for the government without the republicans acting the fool about it. Host you are still on the air. Caller yes, maam. Now they want you to come in for minimumwage. Someone had the nerve to 10 per about making hour . You have to work a couple of hours every day just to get gas to come to work. Rich people dont spread it . Hrough the economy those people who are retired and making Investment Income, they are making the money erie it making the money. Host to that point, we have something here from jodi tyrell, georgia, it says here that your income grew . I Sell Television equipment. Broadcast equipment. It all has to do with who got hit by the recession. Housing, construction, they will obviously get hit pretty hard. Deny that the fed policies have all been an attempt to boost the overall , going up, the people investing me to increase it. That is the saying, you never fight the fed. People looking for a go to the only place they can in the market. Host all right, thank you. On newsmakers this week, we will be talking with bob goodman. He spoke about the actions that congress should take in terms of using military force in iraq and syria. Caller the economy has got me down. Host next up is kevin from pineville, kentucky. You also say your income has gone down . Caller hello . Thank you. Want to say thank you to cspan. Income is going down. I was construction worker. 95 and over the past two or three months, i have been laid off and stuff and its been hard around the house. I have to work an extra job. 2023, voteay that samantha rice for president. That was kevin and pineville, kentucky and next of his jack from annapolis, maryland. Your income went up . Caller i would like to also say thank you for cspan. I find these conversations illuminating. Up because i work harder and work longer. Im able to provide for my. Family without any Government Support host what industry are you in . Caller i am a lawyer. I work for a law firm. The law from charges our clients a certain amount of money, maybe 600 per hour. I get a small part of that, one or 200 per hour depending how things go. Like anybody else, my labor is worth some money and i sell it. I often hear the president talk about how minimumwage workers should not live in poverty. I think the better understanding of that is that people should prepare themselves of that there labor is worth enough money to support themselves and their family and not rely on the government to provide for them. Host do you have investments in the stock market . Caller i do and on my last tax return i was disappointed to see that my income, my Investment Income, is now taxed at a much higher rate because of obamacare. As you may be aware, there are some Investment Income tax rateases that raise my tax to a level i find to be de fiscutory. Theupset i have to pay for failure of other people to provide for their families. Host there are still a few minutes left in a few elected call in and share your experience or your thoughts about where the economy is going, has your income felt the impact of the recession . You can call us at the numbers on your screen here is another chart from the senses euro showing poverty rates by race. In theas been a decline level of poverty among blacks to 27. 2 but it still remains the highest level of any racial group, the lowest level of poverty is among nonhispanic whites. It has grown since the 1970s. It is still below that of other races. We will take another call from david. He is originally from maryland. You say your income has stayed the same . Caller pretty much it has. There was some slow times and a lot of things ive noticed from the past colors is when they from the past colors, callers is you cut them off when i talk about obama care. We will talk now to eileen and baltimore, maryland who says her income has gone down. What is your situation . Due to anfortunately severe accident i am on disability and had to quit my job after a number of years. Cover mylity does not Health Insurance. My Health Insurance was obviously covered by my company at one point. Obamacare, i cannot get on obamacare because i have called repeatedly and i am not eligible for obamacare because i am on medicare. I feel like i am at a crossroads. It is impossible to pay for anything. Mortgage payment, food when you arent disability. Its not that i want to be but i have to be. Office someone in this that is going to take care of just the regular people out there that cannot afford anything these days, that have to go to the food banks and i did not look for this, this unfortunately happened to me. Its just the state of the world right now. There are fortunate people out there and unfortunate people out there. Unfortunately, i am one of the unfortunate people. I would do anything to not be in this position but i am. I thank you for the call. From thats eileen baltimore, maryland. Our last caller this morning is alphonso from nashville, tennessee. You said you have enjoyed an increase in your income . Caller yes, my income went up. Im better off than i was when i am retired. Im 61 years old. Host you said it when up he retired . How did that happen . Investments and i pick up our time jobs. Its much better. Did you find it was easy to find a parttime job . Mike to, i try to make myself marketable. I go to the jobs i want to. When i dont want to, i just dont go. Im doing better now than when i retired. Im doing much better. We will have to leave it there. We will continue our discussion of the economy in our next segment. We will speak with jason bi ckner. And with rudolph penner. Talk aboutill whether or not the pentagon budget should be increased. Given the fight against isis we will ask worden adams, the former white house associate budget director for National Security what he thinks coming up on washington journal. Also check out our campaign 2014 website. We will be bringing you 100 debates and forms in races across t