Over at Redstate a econ-wingnut named Pejman Yousefzadeh claims he is schooling David Leonhardt, a NY Times reporter who discussed economic conditions in Ohio, including the fact that:

Back in 2000, the typical Ohio family was still making more money than the typical American family, according to Moody’s Economy.com. But over the last eight years, real median income in Ohio has dropped almost 10 percent, to about $47,000, leaving it $2,300 below the national median.

Our Redstate blogger says Leonhardt owes a retraction, relying on a 2007 Cato institute study that claims: [my response in brackets]

Contrary to public perceptions:
Trade has had no discernible, negative effect on the number of jobs in the U.S. economy. Our economy today is at full employment, with 16.5 million more people working than a decade ago.

[The Bush Administration has the worst record of job creation since the Great Depression. Only about 6 M jobs have been created, at least 12 M less than population growth would require. BTW, nice job mixing apples (beginning with 1998 in the midst of the tech boom , with oranges, i.e., the GOP administration)]

Trade accounts for only about 3 percent of dislocated workers.Technology and other domestic factors displace far more workers than does trade.

[over to you, Bob Oak]

Average real compensation per hour paid to American workers, which includes benefits as well as wages, has increased by 22 percent in the past decade.

[again, we're starting in the midst of the 1990s boom. Besides, all you're really telling me is that employers have by and large sucked up the huge increases in costs of medical benefits since then, since wages have barely budged]

Median household income in the United States is 6 percent higher in real dollars than it was a decade ago at a comparable point in the previous business cycle. Middle-class households have been moving up the income ladder, not down.

[excuse me, real median household income has never equalled its previous high in 1999, and "at this point in the cicyle" we're entering a recession. That makes the Bush/GOP economy the first one since the Great Depression where median income hasn't improved]

The net loss of 3.3 million manufacturing jobs in the past decade has been overwhelmed by a net gain of 11.6 million jobs in sectors where the average wage is higher than in manufacturing. Two-thirds of the net new jobs created since 1997 are in sectors where workers earn more than in manufacturing.

[again, over to you Bob Oak]

The median net worth of U.S. households jumped by almost one-third between 1995 and 2004, from $70,800 to $93,100.

[You mean, there was a housing bubble between 1995 and 2004? Noticed the Case-Schiller housing index recently? Even in MEAN as opposed to median terms, household net worth has stalled in the last quarter or two]

The large majority of Americans, including the typical middle-class family, is measurably better off today after a decade of healthy trade expansion.

That must explain why 75% of all Americans rate the economy as "good" or "great". Oh, wait....