Paul Waldman: How Did the #GOP Turn Into Such a Bunch of Clowns?

Democrats used to marvel at Republicans’ political skill. But it’s been a decade since the GOP won a victory in policy or elections that wasn’t pre-ordained by circumstance.

For a lot of reasons, the current era will probably be seen as unusually consequential in the history of the two parties, particularly the GOP. For Republicans, it has been a time of ideological hardening and bitter infighting. But one aspect of the Republican dilemma hasn’t gotten as much attention as those: This is a time of unusual, even stunning, Republican political incompetence.

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Jared Bernstein: A Quick Check-in on the Wage Front

We don’t yet have all the data I need to update my full-monty-wage-mash-up, but a few series to which I pay attention are now available for the first half of the year: median weekly earnings (MWE) of full-time workers and two flavors of average hourly earnings. What do they show?

Not much, in terms of wage pressures. MWE is a very noisy series–medians are a more volatile statistic then means–so in order to show underlying pace in nominal weekly earnings, I’ve smoothed the series (using an HP filter; both figures show year-over-year changes). Amidst the jumpiness, the deceleration is clear.

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