Monday, May 30, 2016

Empty Stores

The unemployment rate here is 5.2% according to the latest BLS statistics. So it is around the average. The median wage rate is $15.73 for some 210,000 in the work force. They tell us the economy is doing good. Funny though, there are so many empty stores in our town. There are rows of them in some places, where not very long ago they were all occupied. Why is that, when all is supposedly well? Let's just hazard a guess.

Could it be too many people just do not have the income to support all those empty stores? Is it reasonable to assume that as one's income increases, more is available for discretionary spending? As that discretionary spending increases more people are put to work in those empty stores leading to even lower unemployment. The trick then would be to increase the minimum wage to put more money in people's pockets. Funny that. Maybe crazy Bernie is right after all because as we know, it is all about the money.