Bus Week: Workers gained more than capital in the 1990s

Max B. Sawicky sawicky at bellatlantic.net
Thu Apr 11 20:07:00 PDT 2002


-You don't measure gains "from the beginning of the expansion" (i.e., the -trough) to the end of recession. You measure peak to peak.

It thought the problem with Bartley is that he measured from trough to peak?

mbs: one of the problems. when someone says "from the beginning of the expansion," that sounds like a trough to me. The dates in your excerpt do not jive with the NBER dates.

The gains in the lower-end of workers is a good thing and worth emphasizing.

mbs: sure. hence the salience of 'four-oh' as a target for unemployment, rather than sponging around at five point something. that last percentage point is huge in social terms.

Actually, one possible cause of these wages gains largely unmentioned was the more militant union organizing of the 1990s. Even though the unions did not gain large numbers, just the threat of organizing may have forced companies to raise wages to keep the unions out. -- Nathan Newman

mbs: could be, but hard to test.



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