The good news is the speakers at last week’s Mercer County Economic Summit at The Conference Center at Mercer County Community College in West Windsor painted a pretty positive picture for our economic future.
The bad news is there are some factors we can’t directly control. One is the unrest and bloodshed in the Mideast. The other is the fate of the Japanese nuclear plants.
Despite that, Robert C. Doll, vice chairman, director and chief investment officer of global equities for BlackRock Advisors and a Princeton resident, said the U.S. economy is moving in a good direction and our stock market is outperforming those in the rest of the world.
In addition to what’s going on in Washington, D.C., he also said Wall Street is watching the actions of governors in New Jersey and Wisconsin, where Gov. Chris Christie is asking for concessions from unions and reductions in public pensions and where Gov. Scott Walker has proposed cutting state worker union rights and making them pay more for benefits.
The problem is the view from Wall Street is different than that from Main Street USA.
While people are told things are improving there are still many who are hurting.
And no one is holding protest signs for them. Most don’t belong to a union.
While teachers, police and firefighters continue to get at least some pay increases and contribute relatively little to their health care and pension plans, many people on Main Street have not seen a raise in a while but have seen their contributions to health care increase significantly.
Locally, boroughs and townships are going through the annual budgeting process. In most cases, if not all cases, the expectations are that property taxes will go up again, with percentages of increases varying from community to community.
That’s another burden for people to bear.
The middle-income and low-income families in America continue to take it on the chin.
It’s good that the economy is improving in the big picture, but we hope the trickle down reaches those who still need it sooner rather than later.
