For Media, Economy is always Bad

Edwin Feulner is head of the conservative Heritage Foundation. He has observed the media buries good economic news, and features bad news, something this blog has previously noted. Feulner’s example involves U.S. worker pay. He quotes an August 21 New York Times story that said, "While incomes have been on the rise since 2002, the average income in 2005 was $55,238, still nearly 1 percent less than the $55,714 in 2000, after adjusting for inflation."

Here’s what the Times’ bad-news article misses, according to Feulner:

 employees are actually paid quite a bit more than the amount shown on their paycheck. The Heritage Foundation’s average benefit ratio was 26 percent. Nationwide, it's 30 percent. That's a lot of compensation that never shows up in a bank account.

 because lawmakers choose not to tax benefits while taxing regular pay at high rates (often 40 percent or more), employers are encouraged to shift more and more of their compensation into benefits. The good news is that total compensation is better -- and the economy stronger -- than the media would have us believe.

Feulner leaves out that Bush tax cuts also give workers more take-home pay. But the media are apoplectic about the possibility that a strong economy will keep Republicans in power. After all, it was economic failure that doomed Carter in 1980 and Bush 41 in 1992, and success that sustained Reagan in 1984 and Clinton 42 in 1996. Republicans must be denied the issue in 2008.