TrimTabs Estimates Take-Home Pay of All Taxpayers in 2009 Plunged $800 Billion, or 12%, While Value of U.S. Stocks Surged $3.5 Trillion, or 27%

SAUSALITO, Calif., Dec 21, 2009 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ ----TrimTabs Investment Research estimated today that the take-home pay of all taxpayers in 2009 plunged $800 billion, or 12%, to $5.8 trillion. Meanwhile, the market value of all U.S. stocks rose $3.5 trillion, or 27%, to $16 trillion.

"Flooding the market with newly printed money generated huge profits for Wall Street firms and some investors," said Charles Biderman, CEO of TrimTabs. "But the money printing did little to restart the country's growth engine and bring prosperity to average Americans."

Biderman explained that one reason the Obama administration may not have acted more aggressively to stem the decline in incomes is that it relied on flawed data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. While real-time tax data shows that the take-home pay of all taxpayers fell 12% in 2009, the BEA calculates that all personal income, which includes transfer payments, fell only 1%.*

"The BEA is wrong because it refuses to use available tax data," said Biderman. "Instead, the bureaucrats at the Commerce Department continue to use methodologies that were developed decades ago."

TrimTabs noted that the biggest long-term problem for American consumers is the lack of a catalyst to restart income growth. Between 2003 and 2007, consumer spending was spurred by the more than $3 trillion extracted from homes. That stimulus is long gone. In the previous decade, the adoption of broadband Internet also boosted incomes. Now that broadband is almost universally available and homes are priced as places to live rather than as investments, there is no obvious spark for growth.

To view the Take-Home Pay and Net Equity Extraction chart, click here: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20091221/NY29057

"Many investors are counting on demand in the developing world to fuel an economic recovery," said Biderman. "But emerging economies are unlikely to pull the U.S. out of its funk because they do not need as much U.S. capital and manufacturing as they once did."

Biderman added that he believes cutting income taxes would have been a lot more effective in jump-starting the economy than flooding the financial system with money.

"The economic numbers for 2009 are very grim," noted Biderman, "and the latest data shows no sign that the average American will be better off in 2010."