On Mar 7, 2007, at 2:56 PM, James Heartfield wrote:
> Doug says my comparison of 1975 with 2007 is
> unfair because 1975 was the low point of a recession. But it was he
> who
> introduced 1973 as the high point of working class purchasing
> power. If you
> could tell me what was the low point of the recession in the '00s then
> perhaps I could make a fairer comparison.
I introduced 1973 as the peak of real hourly earnings because it was! July, to be precise, $19.03/hr in today's dollars. Last month, the average U.S. worker earned $17.09/hr. By the way, the peak real value of the minimum wage in today's dollars was Feb 68, $9.49. It's now $5.15.
In the early 1970s expansion, the unemployment rate reached a low of 4.6% in October 1973. Last month it was...4.6%. It never got very high in the most recent recession, but it did hit 7.7% in June 1992. Of course, a lot depends on what you want to use as a point of comparison. The unemployment rate was high in the late 1970s and early 1980s, so the late 1990s through today look good. But the unemployment rate stayed below 4% for every month but one between 1966 and 1969. Decade averages:
1950s 4.5% 1960s 4.8 1970s 6.2 1980s 7.3 1990s 5.7 2000s 5.1