NYS Biggest Income Decline in US

Is this a 15% decline in incomes or a 15% decline in withholdings? Both would be significant but have different implications.

"as measured by withholdings "

i also worry about this less from an "everyone's income is going down" front, more from a "and we thought state government looked like morons before".... imagine them trying to deal with a 15% budget cut (when 2% nearly killed them).

so if it's measured by withholding, this drop is not taking into account those that are self-employed?

Admin, yikes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/magazine/07unemployed-t.html?pagewanted=all

"New York City has more than its share of the self-employed: 720,000 in 2004, representing 16 percent of the city’s work force, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis."

thought about the obvious freelancers, real estate brokers, interior designers... but forgot the yoga instructors, fitness gurus, personal chefs... you can tell i'm not hip.

Self employed pay quarterly taxes - one would assume that "withholdings" would include these payments - no???
Still though - this should be no surprise to anyone - we go lower from here.

Jazzman, either way this ain't looking good.

I remain bearish.

Have you noticed all the press reports (NY Times yesterday biz section) that ultimately say things like, "Such and such indicator is up, but all these other indicators are down, therefore things are not so bad"?

A lot of people are in denial, which in the buy-and-spend world is not necessarily a bad thing.

But--yikes.

{Manhattan real estate agent.}

meanwhile the aging process is hitting us in earnest. for the 1st time i've seen SS in red by 2013. nice to have a safety net that depends on economic growth. what kind of risk management is that? if things are good you could get a SS check and a job. if things are bad, none. lol.

ideally, society should have set apart $ anticipating for the bad consequences of aging like 30 years ago, while the demographic wave was having a nice impact (discretionary income 3 times as big as now, a family could be supported on 1 income and the other could have been 100% saved for the old age). using surpluses for current spending was a nonsense. anyway, we will see what price society will have to pay for the "don't plan and hope for the best" mentality.

oh it's called playing with other's monies.... should've seen me with my job/bank's credit card. : )

lol 67th, what's your plan if taxed to oblivion?