Posted on 09/06/2004 11:09:07 AM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
The Labor Department reported last week that 144,000 payroll jobs were created in August. Let's put that in perspective.
The number was below market forecasts. It was also below the number of jobs needed to accommodate the growth in the employment-aged population. In short, this was not good news. It's only by the diminished job-creation standards that have prevailed since the last recession that any positive spin could be put on last month's performance.
As the Economic Policy Institute tells us, in a book-length report it is releasing today: "The United States has been tracking employment statistics since 1939, and never in history has it taken this long to regain the jobs lost over a downturn."
In "The State of Working America 2004/2005," the institute shows in tremendous detail how those lost jobs and other disappointing aspects of the recovery are taking a severe economic toll on working families.
According to the institute:
"After almost three years of recovery, our job market is still too weak to broadly distribute the benefits of the growing economy. Unemployment is essentially unchanged, job growth has stalled, and real wages have started to fall behind inflation. Today's picture is a stark contrast to the full employment period before the recession, when the tight labor market ensured that the benefits of growth were broadly shared.
"Prolonged weakness in the labor market has left the nation with over a million fewer jobs than when the recession began. This is a worse position, in terms of recouping lost jobs, than any business cycle since the 1930's."
What is happening is nothing less than a deterioration in the standard of living in the United States. Despite the statistical growth in the economy, the continued slack in the labor market has resulted in declining real wages for anxious American workers and a marked deterioration in job quality.
From 2000 through 2003 the median household income fell by $1,500 (in 2003 dollars) - a significant 3.4 percent decrease. That information becomes startling when you consider that during the same period there was a strong 12 percent increase in productivity among U.S. workers. Economists will tell you that productivity increases go hand-in-hand with increases in the standard of living. But not this time. Here we have a 3.4 percent loss in real income juxtaposed with a big jump in productivity.
"So the economic pie is growing gangbusters and the typical household is falling behind," said Jared Bernstein, the institute's senior economist and a co-author of the new book.
This is the part of the story that spotlights the unfairness at the heart of the current economic setup in the U.S. While workers have been remarkably productive in recent years, they have not participated in the benefits of their own increased productivity. That doesn't sound very much like the American way.
According to the institute, "Between 1947 and 1973 productivity and real median family income both grew 104 percent, a golden age of growth for both variables." That parallel relationship began to break down in the 1970's, but it is only recently that it fell apart altogether, leaving us with the following evidence of unrestrained inequity:
"In the 2000-03 period income shifted extremely rapidly and extensively from labor compensation to capital income (profits and interest)," so that the "benefits of faster productivity growth" went overwhelmingly to capital.
American workers are in an increasingly defensive position. In a tight labor market, when jobs are plentiful, workers have leverage and can demand increased wages and benefits. But today's workers have lost power in many different ways - through the slack labor market, government policies that favor corporate interests, the weakening of unions, the growth of lower-paying service industries, global trade, capital mobility, the declining real value of the minimum wage, immigration and so on.
The end result of all this is a portrait of American families struggling just to hang on, rather than to get ahead. The benefits of productivity gains and economic growth are flowing to profits, not worker compensation. The fat cats are getting fatter, while workers, at least for the time being, are watching the curtain come down on the heralded American dream.
I have watched you here for some time, Willie. Misrepresenting your views is the last thing I have done. You economic history is lacking as usual. The vast majority of the regulatory infrastructure which you rightly complain about was the result of Democratic Congressional action. The RATs owned the House for 40 years and we are supposed to fix with the sweep of a wand now, eh? Not very realistic. The sad fact is that most Americans don't get the connection between economic over-regulation and lack of competitiveness (e.g. minimum wage laws destroying entry level work in many fields). With the RATs (and their willing accomplises in the press) doing their best to destroy the Republican mandate Bush has had very limited opportunity to address these issues (as well a something that happened on September 11). I hope for better after this election. Bush is not perfect (CFR was an abortion IMHO). But never take economic advice from Bob Herbert (or Krugman for that matter).
As the Economic Policy Institute tells us, in a book-length report it is releasing today: "The United States has been tracking employment statistics since 1939, and never in history has it taken this long to regain the jobs lost over a downturn."
Well that's what happens when President Bush and the corporate trade collaborators from both parties make China a permanent favored trading nation.
When we export jobs and the money to buy America, we have a lose-lose. Remember in November.
I heard a union goon say this very thing on C-SPAN this morning, Joe.
Ready to drill ANWAR? Dems oppose that. Ready to take the coal out of the Rockies? Can't do that, it might make it impossible to re-introduce the wolf into the mountains. Ready to build nuke power plants? OMG!!! No. Ready to screw trips to Mars to have a Manhatten Project for energy independence? ?????
"The Labor Department reported last week that 144,000 payroll jobs were created in August. Let's put that in perspective.
The number was below market forecasts. It was also below the number of jobs needed to accommodate the growth in the employment-aged population. In short, this was not good news."
SOME PEOPLE WOULD COMPLAIN IF YOU HUNG 'EM WITH A NEW ROPE!
bttt.
I don't give a damn who may have said it. It's the absolute truth.
I know you don't. Shows who you'd link arms with.
And, your statement is simply liberal bitterness.
What is wrong with profit, as long as it is legally obtained? I have to agree with you about the illegals, but I assume you are not a socialist?
Because a Bush vs. Kerry debate on the issue will be a pathetic farce.
Since the last two months Jobs Data (June/July) was updated to add 73,000 more jobs than originally reported, I'd bet the farm that September's numbers will update August numbers by at least 45,000. That is a fugure that FAR exceeds the reading of chicken entrails!
IT WILL HAPPEN!
LLS
The line between LIBerals, and LIBertarians, is razor thin today!
LLS
See #19
"American workers are in an increasingly defensive position. In a tight labor market, when jobs are plentiful, workers have leverage and can demand increased wages and benefits. But today's workers have lost power in many different ways - through the slack labor market, government policies that favor corporate interests, the weakening of unions, the growth of lower-paying service industries, global trade, capital mobility, the declining real value of the minimum wage, immigration and so on."
You make your own success in life. It has nothing to do with the government or your employer. Living in a FREE society you can make your own personal CHOICES. This commentary is a load of cry-baby crap.
Pick up those lemons life hands you and make a refreshing pitcher of lemonade kids. We all have the tools for success inherent in the blessings we receive from God. What you do with them is because of that other blessing he gives you, FREE WILL.
Far from it. In fact the difference is so far appart I find it hard not to characterize your comment as deliberately misleading. Liberals don't want free trade - they want the gov to manage all that (basically to pick winners and losers). Libertarians generally want the government out of the middle of picking economic winners and losers (low tarrifs, etc.).
Can't have those "low prices" now, can we? Or lots of choices, either, can we?
Karl Marx ate carrots, too.
You gonna stop eating carrots because he did?
Sheesh!!
I heard a union goon say this very thing on C-SPAN this morning, Joe.
I don't give a damn who may have said it. It's the absolute truth.
I know you don't. Shows who you'd link arms with. And, your statement is simply liberal bitterness.
What a crock of sh**. This is your response to my post? Millions of Californians and others through out the entire southwest are saying the same damn thing.
You call my statement liberal?
What an absolute crock.
You can spend your nights and weekends studying math and engineering when you are young or someone from India will do it and you will be out of luck. You can continue to educate yourself afte college and be as productive as possible or some guy from a third world country will do it for less. Compete or else you have no one to blame but yourself.
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