[lbo-talk] US immiseration

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Mar 6 15:07:55 PST 2007


On Mar 6, 2007, at 5:44 PM, James Heartfield wrote:


> This is what the ILO says
>
> http://laborsta.ilo.org/cgi-bin/brokerv8.exe#291
> Non agricultural weekly hours US
>
> 1976 36.1
> 2006 33.9

A major reason for this is the decline in manufacturing jobs, which have a longer workweek than services. But if more people are working, aggregate hours will rise, as they have.


> http://laborsta.ilo.org/cgi-bin/brokerv8.exe#291
> Non agricultural earnings per hour dollars
>
> 1976 4.86
> 1986 8.76
> 1996 12.03
> 2006 16.76
>
> "Real earnings are expressed in constant dollars and are calculated
> from the
> earnings averages for the current month using a deflator derived
> from the
> Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers
> (CPI-W).
> The reference year is 1982."

That's very nice, but the numbers cited are not adjusted for inflation - they're an almost exact match for the BLS's nominal wages.

James, I quoted you the BLS's figures for aggregate hours worked in the private sector and for the real wage (deflated by the CPI-U). They show a rise nearly twice the rate of the overall growth in the pop for the former, and a significant decline in the latter. The ILO isn't going to tell you much different because they get the numbers from the BLS.

Why do you have such a hard time believing this?

Doug

PS: The links don't work, by the way.



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