>I am extremely skeptical about the worker's gains in the nineties article.
>
>1: these gains came during the biggest economic expansion in U.S.
>history--they will as quickly be lost should a long
>recession/unemployment follow
But a) the long 1980s expansion produced real wage losses, and b) real wage gains accelerated during the period of formal recession. Should the recovery peter out and unemployment drift higher (like it did in the early 1990s), the wage gains will probably be reversed - but not yet.
>2: these gains came on the heels of a huge setback for the working
>class, starting in the seventies
Well yes, and the real wage gains reversed less than half the loss from 1973-95, but it's the best that workers across the U.S. wage distribution have done since the 1960s.
>3: wage gains don't mean much given the inflation or outright
>unavailability of other, basic human needs: health, education,
>housing being foremost.
Yes, of course, but there's no point in denying the gains. Most of these things were in equally dire shortage in 1992 as they are today.
The major point is that a long expansion during which the unemployment rate stays under 5% for a relatively long time is a very good thing for the working class. It produced not only wage gains, but I'd even say it helped produce "Seattle." Greenspan knew exactly what he was talking about when he worried repeatedly in the late 1990s and into 2000 about the dwindling pool of available workers. Here's an example from Feb 2000 <http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/hh/2000/February/Testimony.htm>:
>Imbalances in the labor markets perhaps may have even more serious
>implications for inflation pressures. While the pool of officially
>unemployed and those otherwise willing to work may continue to
>shrink, as it has persistently over the past seven years, there is
>an effective limit to new hiring, unless immigration is uncapped. At
>some point in the continuous reduction in the number of available
>workers willing to take jobs, short of the repeal of the law of
>supply and demand, wage increases must rise above even impressive
>gains in productivity. This would intensify inflationary pressures
>or squeeze profit margins, with either outcome capable of bringing
>our growing prosperity to an end.
Doug