Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> A better measure might be the
> number of hours it takes the average U.S. worker to earn the
> equivalent of a barrel of crude (since you avoid all the
> complications of price indexes); it was 5.25 at the 1980 peak, vs.
> 2.56 in May 2004.
>
For those of us who mistrust (and/or don't really understand) the concept of "average u.s. worker," would it be possible to calculate the following:
How many hours of work in 1980 and now would it take a worker earning (say) the minimum wage + 15%?
Would that be (roughly) the same as for the "average worker"? I presume the figure (if available) would be distorted by the fact that minimum wage & inflation don't track very well. But it seems like all such comparative figures are distorted in one way or another.
Carrol