Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Reaganomics is working
As the Bush Depression drags on, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the Republican caucus in Congress, it is not just the unemployed who are suffering. After years of little or no wage increases, employers find themselves in a position to cut wages and hours and benefits in an effort to maintain profits.
“I’m looking for something else, anything else,” she said. “More hours. Better pay. Actual benefits.”And in an election year with the Republican/Teabaggers having decided on a campaign of pure unadulterated lies, the future looms darkly ahead of us.
These are anxious days for American workers. Many, like Ms. Woods, are underemployed. Others find pay that is simply not keeping up with their expenses: adjusted for inflation, the median hourly wage was lower in 2011 than it was a decade earlier, according to data from a forthcoming book by the Economic Policy Institute, “The State of Working America, 12th Edition.” Good benefits are harder to come by, and people are staying longer in jobs that they want to leave, afraid that they will not be able to find something better. Only 2.1 million people quit their jobs in March, down from the 2.9 million people who quit in December 2007, the first month of the recession.
“Unfortunately, the wage problems brought on by the recession pile on top of a three-decade stagnation of wages for low- and middle-wage workers,” said Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a research group in Washington that studies the labor market. “In the aftermath of the financial crisis, there has been persistent high unemployment as households reduced debt and scaled back purchases. The consequence for wages has been substantially slower growth across the board, including white-collar and college-educated workers.”
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