Self-determination

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Jan 9 11:43:38 PST 2003


Miles Jackson wrote:


>On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> The U.S. was about the
>> only rich country where real wages fell over a sustained period
>> (1973-95), but they've been rising for the last 7 years.
>
>Median household income's been declining since 2001, according to
>historical data at the U. S. census web site. I know household
>income is not the same thing as wages, but I think it's a much
>better indicator of the economic well being of typical Americans.

Yup. I wrote all this up in detail in LBO #103 in fact. The main reason is job loss during the recession; for those still employed, real wages have continued to rise.


>It's also important to keep in mind that household income would be
>far lower if people worked as many hours a year as people did in
>the U. S. 30 years ago or in W. Europe today.

Yup. That was also charted in #103.


> To put it bluntly,
>the median household works its ass off to financially tread water.
>So the trend for workers isn't quite as happy as Doug implies above.

Real hourly wages rising 1-2% a year somewhat better than falling 1-2% a year. I never said the plight of U.S. workers was terribly happy, did I?

Doug



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