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Wage
Data from State of Working America 2008-9, Mishel
et al
African
Americans see weekly wage decline, EPI 7/09
Unionization
Substantially Improves the Pay&Benefits of Latino Workers
en
español
The
Crime Wave No One Talks About [Wage Theft], TPM,
K. Bobo, 5/09
The
Wage Implosion, Mishel & Shierholz, EPI 6/09
Real
Earnings in December 2009, BLS Jan.
15, 2010 Real average hourly earnings did not change from
November to December, seasonally adjusted, the Bureau
of Labor Statistics reported today. A 0.2 percent increase in
average hourly earnings for
production and nonsupervisory workers was offset by a 0.2 percent
increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and
Clerical Workers (CPI-W).
Real average hourly earnings
fell 1.3 percent, seasonally adjusted, from December 2008 to December
2009. A 0.3 percent decline in average weekly hours combined
with the decrease in real average hourly earnings resulted in
a 1.6 percent decrease in real average weekly earnings during
this period. [emphasis added--jz]
Going
Nowhere: Workers' Wages Since the Mid-1970s,
Wasow, TCF, 5/08

For
Many, a Boom That Wasn’t, David Leonhardt,
NYTimes, 4/9/08
Real
wage reversal persists, Bernstein, EPI, 2/08
Change in real compensation by different income levels
8/9/07
.
Understanding
Low-Wage Work in the United States, Boushey et al,
3/07
Earnings
premium for skilled workers down sharply in recent years,
2/06
"Bush's Expansion Leaves Workers
Behind, Sparking Fed Friction
Jan. 17 [2006] (Bloomberg) -- American workers
have rarely taken home a smaller share of the nation's prosperity,
a condition that is undermining bipartisan support for free trade
and creating friction between President George W. Bush's administration
and the Federal Reserve.
After 16 consecutive quarters of economic growth,
pay is rising at a slower rate than in any similar expansion since
the end of World War II. Companies are paying less of their cash
gains in the form of wages and salaries than at any time since
the Great Depression, according to government figures.
Such a disparity, partly the result of globalization
of the labor market, helps explain why the Bush administration
is struggling to muster support for lower trade barriers even
with the jobless rate at a four-year low. The imbalance has also
triggered a debate between Bush's Treasury Department and the
Fed about how low unemployment can go without kindling inflation.
``There is no doubt that something is happening''
to reduce labor's share of income, says Robert Solow, a Nobel
Prize- winning economist and professor emeritus at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge. An economy that doesn't
distribute its gains widely is ``poorly performing,'' he says.
From the final quarter of 2001 through last year's
third quarter, total compensation paid to employees by corporations,
including health benefits, rose at a 4.3 percent average annual
rate, according to government figures. That's the slowest growth
for any similar period in post-war expansions lasting at least
four years.
`Not Connecting'-- Stripping
away benefits, corporate wages and salaries rose at a 3.4 percent
annual rate in the 16-quarter period, the slowest of any post-war
expansion lasting that long. Wages and salaries as a share of
the cash corporations are generating from the expansion stood
at 51 percent in the second and third quarters, the lowest in
government records going back to 1929. Including benefits, labor's
share was the lowest since 1997......... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_us&refer=us&sid=azvCEhXtl1g0
Basic
family budget calculator, EPI
An
off-kilter expansion: Slack job market continues to hurt wage
growth, Bernstein & Price, 9/05
Incomes
Down; Poverty Up, Bernstein and Mishel
The
Productivity Problem, J.Tasini,
Working Life, July 14, 2005
Union
Advantage Reaches New Highs, 6/05
Living-Wage
Politics--states are raising minimum wage
How
Prime-Age Workers Get Trapped in Minimum Wage Jobs,
Boushey, 5/05
The
Fruits Of One's Labor, Max
B. Sawicky 5/05

"In the past three years...shop-happy consumers,
cheerfully determined to live beyond their means, leaned a lot
more heavily on borrowings ($675 billion of non-mortgage debt)
than paychecks ($530 billion) to cover the $1.3 trillion increase
in their spending." .Source for charts: Stephanie Pomboy,
MacroMavens, via Alan Abelson, Barron's, April 25, 2005;
Abelson quoted in http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/
Young
college graduates face weak labor market
5/6/05
Real
Wages: two years of loss Profits
fine [graph-Business
Week 4/18/05]
"Over the last 30 years
the typical (median) wage in the United States has hardly grown
-- only about 9 percent. Productivity -- output per employee --
has grown by 82 percent over the same period. Normally we would
expect wages and salaries to grow with productivity. These trade
agreements have helped keep wages from growing here, by increasing
competition with workers making 60 cents per hour and by making
it easier for employers to threaten to move when workers demand
their share of rising productivity. " "CAFTA
Fall Short on Economic Arguments," By Mark Weisbrot, 4/05.
See also http://www.cbpp.org/4-21-05inc.htm
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