Free trade bandwagon loses its steam

The Age (Australia) ^ | 6. December 2005 | Tim Colebatch

[Toddsterpatriot]

staff@heritage.org

To Tim Kane, Ph.D.
in the subject line. Good luck

[em2vn]

You posted it now you back it up. If you can't provide some source material don't expect to be taken seriously. All I saw was a chart without reference to its relationship to anything.
Nice try but that won't work. You demanded of me a govermental source to support a statement and I provided it. Now the same is expected of you.
Start digging. It's not up to me to prove your claim. You made the claim. Support it.

[Toddsterpatriot]

You demanded of me a govermental source to support a statement and I provided it.

I didn't demand a government source to back your assertion that "Real wages have declined every year since 1973" post #123 or
"Decline in middle class real income since 1973, once again the GAO,31%"
18 posted on 03/27/2005 6:57:43 AM CST by em2vn

I'd be happy if you posted any source that backs up your claim.

If you can find a source to back your claims then obviously my link to a Heritage Foundation article must be wrong. Tell you what, as soon as you find one source that backs up your 31% decline, I'll find a government source that proves yours is wrong.

It's your move.

[expat_panama]

You and I have run into the same problem.  Your guy says "wages are down" and mine says "homes are unaffordable".  We go to all the trouble to dig out  hard numbers that prove to the opposite.  These guys then continue to repeat their nonsense like nothing happened.  

I'm baffled.  The only thing I can figure is that their brains must be coated with some kind of mental Teflon so that reality can't stick.

[Toddsterpatriot]

We go to all the trouble to dig out hard numbers that prove to the opposite.

I know the Heritage Foundation might not be his favorite source but he could at least find something from E.P.I. that shows real wages have dropped every year since 1973.

[expat_panama]

Heritage shmeritage.  The graph said right on it "Source: US Dept. of Labor".  Oh, so now the BLS is no good either, and the only source of truth on wages is em2vn's posts.

Sheesh.

[Toddsterpatriot]

The graph said right on it "Source: US Dept. of Labor". Oh, so now the BLS is no good either, and the only source of truth on wages is em2vn's posts.

He'll only be satisfied if he can go to the Dept. of Labor site and see the raw data. Of course if he could do that he wouldn't have said something stupid like wages have dropped 31% since 1973. Or real wages have dropped every year since 1973.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Now the same is expected of you. Start digging. It's not up to me to prove your claim. You made the claim. Support it.

Data extracted on: December 8, 2005 (10:18:25 AM)

Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National)

Series Id:     CEU0500000049 Not Seasonally Adjusted Super Sector:  Total private Industry:      Total private NAICS Code:    N/A Data Type:     AVERAGE HOURLY EARNINGS, 1982 DOLLARS
Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
1994	7.60	7.58	7.54	7.55	7.55	7.49	7.48	7.45	7.53	7.55	7.53	7.55	7.53
1995	7.57	7.54	7.52	7.52	7.49	7.47	7.50	7.48	7.56	7.57	7.57	7.59	7.53
1996	7.60	7.56	7.53	7.55	7.51	7.53	7.51	7.52	7.60	7.58	7.59	7.63	7.57
1997	7.64	7.63	7.64	7.64	7.64	7.64	7.62	7.65	7.72	7.74	7.79	7.81	7.68
1998	7.84	7.87	7.87	7.87	7.86	7.83	7.82	7.87	7.94	7.94	7.97	7.97	7.89
1999	8.01	8.00	8.00	7.97	7.99	7.96	7.95	7.96	8.01	8.01	8.02	8.04	8.00
2000	8.09	8.04	7.98	8.04	8.00	7.96	7.98	7.99	8.04	8.07	8.07	8.11	8.03
2001	8.09	8.08	8.09	8.09	8.03	8.01	8.07	8.07	8.14	8.16	8.21	8.29	8.11
2002	8.29	8.25	8.21	8.18	8.17	8.20	8.18	8.18	8.26	8.26	8.27	8.35	8.24
2003	8.32	8.30	8.23	8.23	8.25	8.26	8.25	8.23	8.26	8.27	8.34	8.34	8.27
2004	8.33	8.31	8.23	8.23	8.20	8.14	8.17	8.20	8.25	8.22	8.22	8.27	8.23

 

Frequently Asked Questions | Freedom of Information Act | Customer Survey
Privacy & Security Statement | Linking to Our Site | Accessibility

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Postal Square Building 2 Massachusetts Ave., NE Washington, DC 20212-0001

Phone: (202) 691-5200 Fax-on-demand: (202) 691-6325 Data questions: blsdata_staff@bls.gov Technical (web) questions: webmaster@bls.gov Other comments: feedback@bls.gov

Okay, your turn. I'm sure your government source if better than mine. LOL!!

[expat_panama]

You're absolutely right.  Now that you've backed up your graph with respectable data I can now see that wages have been increasing and that I was totally wrong.

 

I am forever in your debt.

229 posted on 12/07/2005 6:51:16 PM EST by em2vn (I was so wrong.)

[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 221 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

---

gotcha!  ;-)

You're absolutely right.  Now that you've backed up your graph with respectable data I can now see that wages have been increasing and that I was totally wrong.

 

I am forever in your debt.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Sneaky!!

[expat_panama]

lol!

[em2vn]

I have two questions. Weren't talking about 1973 dollars and what is the net address for the report you took your information from?

[Toddsterpatriot]

Weren't talking about 1973 dollars

You may have been talking about 1973 dollars. I'll be happy to look at any source you provide using 1973 dollars.

The chart I posted in post# 216 from the article I linked to in post# 218 was based on 1982 dollars.

and what is the net address for the report you took your information from?

The info in post# 228 is here.

Go to the 7th box (Total Private Average Hourly Earnings, 1982 Dollars - Seasonally Adjusted - CES0500000049 ), click on it. At the bottom of the page click retrieve data. Then you can create your own report using years all the way back to 1964.

Ping me when you have proof that either real wages have dropped every year since 1973 or that real wages have dropped 31% since 1973. I guess you can also ping me if you want to admit you misspoke.

[remember]

I have two questions. Weren't talking about 1973 dollars and what is the net address for the report you took your information from?

Toddsterpatriot is correct that real wages have NOT dropped every year since 1973 or that real wages have NOT dropped 31% since 1973. However, the following graph may offer some clue as to what your source was referring to:

The actual numbers and sources are at http://home.att.net/~rdavis2/jobs.html. The data goes up to August of 2004. According to the BLS website, the latest hourly figure is 8.10 for October of 2005. In any case, the graph shows that the average hourly real wage did go down pretty steeply from 1973 to 1994 (though it didn't go down every year in that span). From January of 1973 to August of 1994, the average real wage dropped from $9.08 to $7.50, a drop of 17.4 percent. However, a quick google search showed where the 31 percent figure might possibly have come from. The following excerpts are from an American Prospect article at http://www.prospect.org/print/V7/27/sum-a.html:

From 1973 to 1994 the real median weekly earnings of young women fell 14 percent — compared to a decline of 31 percent for young men.
:
The earnings of full-time employed males older than 24 have also declined. The relative size of older men's earnings declines, however, has been much smaller—only a 9 percent decline for men over 25 compared to 31 percent for men aged 16 to 24.

Rather than real AVERAGE HOURLY earnings from 1973 to present, this 31 percent refers to real MEDIAN WEEKLY earnings for men 16 to 24 from 1973 to 1994. In either case, however, we are still well below the 1973 level.