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Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is warning of a sea change coming to the global economy. Greenspan says the glory days of low-cost imports from China are coming to an end, sending a wave of inflation to the U.S., reports Bloomberg. After a speech in London yesterday, Greenspan answered an audience member's question about whether China's rapid economic growth will translate into rising prices. Greenspan cited an index of import prices from China to the U.S. that revealed prices are already beginning to trend higher (see chart). The index "finally turned higher in the spring," said Greenspan. "It's saying...

Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they had to make ends meet with less money than at the peak of the last economic expansion, new government data shows. While incomes have been on the rise since 2002, the average income in 2005 was $55,238, still nearly 1 percent less than the $55,714 in 2000, after adjusting for inflation, analysis of new tax statistics show. The combined income of all Americans in 2005 was slightly larger than it was in 2000, but because more people were dividing up the national income...

" McDonald's in Sidney, Mont., said he tried advertising in the local newspaper and even offered up to $10 an hour to compete with higher-paying oil field jobs. Yet the only calls were from other business owners upset they would have to raise wages, too. Of course, Francis' current employees also wanted a pay hike." " "The only economic development we used to get was the creation of more economic development offices." "And workers have benefited. Utah workers saw a 5.4 percent average wage increase in 2006,Knold said. "

Young women in New York, Dallas, Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston and a few other of the nation's largest cities who work full time have forged ahead of men in wages, according to an analysis of 2005 census data.-Snip-The study by Queens College demographer Andrew A. Beveridge shows that all women from ages 21 to 30 living in New York City and working full time made 117 percent of men's wages, or a median wage of $35,653, and even more in Dallas, 120 percent.-Snip-Also, many of those women are not marrying right after college, leaving them freer to focus on building careers,...

he day the first minimum wage increase in 10 years was enacted, Democrats and Big Labor made it clear they would ask for another hike soon. On Tuesday, a 70 cent increase to the federal minimum wage went into effect. The minimum wage increase, passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress in May, will increase 70 cents twice more over the next two years, until it reaches $7.25 in 2009. To celebrate, labor activists held a rally on Capitol Hill to thank congressional Democrats for delivering the pay raise—and demanded more. “Even when we get to $7.25, it’s not enough. We have...

After a grudging admission of the actual numbers and an "it's good but not great" quote from an unimpressed economist, here is the incriminating passage:Wage gains for most Americans last month were slow, and are most likely still trailing inflation. Compared with June 2006, average hourly earnings for workers in nonmanagement jobs increased 3.9 percent, to $17.38, less than the 4 percent advance in May.

If you have any doubts government-mandated minimum-wage laws kill jobs for the poor rather than lift them out of poverty, just take a look at what is happening right now in American Samoa. The latest minimum-wage law passed by Congress calls specifically for hikes in the U.S. territory – 50 cents a year annually until the continental rate of $7.25 is reached. This Washington-knows-best, one-size-fits-all approach is killing jobs in Samoa already – just days after it was signed into law by President Bush last Friday. StarKist had planned to expand its tuna production next month by hiring some 200-300...

Share this with All your Friends... And SHOW this to your children and grandchildren !!!! THE YEAR 1907 This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine! The year is 1907. One hundred years ago. What a difference a century makes! Here are some of the U.S. Statistics for the Year 1907: ************************************ The average life expectancy in the U.S. Was 47 years old. Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. Had a bathtub . Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from Denver to New York City Cost eleven dollars. There...

The master plan, it seems, is to move perhaps 40 million high-skill American jobs to other countries. U.S. workers have not been consulted. Princeton economist Alan Blinder predicts that these choice jobs could be lost in a mere decade or two. We speak of computer programming, bookkeeping, graphic design and other careers once thought firmly planted in American soil. For perspective, 40 million is more than twice the total number of people now employed in manufacturing. Blinder was taken aback when, sitting in at the business summit in Davos, Switzerland, he heard U.S. executives talk enthusiastically about all the professional...

Businesses took on 180,000 more workers in March, only slightly short of the 200,000 per month average during the last two months. The unemployment rate fell by 0.1 percentage point to 4.4%, equaling its level of last October. Joblessness hasn't been lower since May 2001, just before the last recession. Wages also continued their recent upward march. Average hourly earnings of production workers advanced six cents to $17.22, and have risen 4% over the past year. Average weekly earnings rose even faster -- 4.4% during the year. Investors, facing the combination of a tighter jobs market and potentially inflationary wage...

THE NEW York Times recently reported that the earnings gap is now the widest since 1928, with the richest 1 percent of Americans having captured most of the economy's 2005 growth, and the bottom 90 percent getting nothing. Between 1979 and 2005, according to MIT professor Thomas Kochan, productivity of American manufacturing rose by about 70 percent, but the real wages of production workers remained flat. This economic pummeling of ordinary Americans has many causes, including deregulation of industries that once paid decent wages, the weakening of tacit social compacts in which bosses were ashamed to pay themselves hundreds of...

Evelyn Coke sat in her wood-frame home in Corona, Queens, a hobbled figure, not realizing that this is supposed to be her moment in the spotlight. For 20 years, she had cared for clients in their homes, bathing them, cooking for them, helping them dress and take their medications. But now, suffering from kidney failure, she is too ill to work. [...] The stakes in her case are considerable, not least because home care attendant is one of the nation’s fastest growing occupations. There are expected to be nearly two million aides by 2014, as the elderly population grows and...

SUPPOSE SOMEONE offered to import 350 foreign workers to New Bedford to work for less than the minimum wage. Since the unemployment rate is over 8 percent, we would expect public outrage. The city needs jobs, not more unskilled laborers. So it is no surprise that citizens seeking jobs started lining up at the Michael Bianco plant after Immigration and Customs Enforcement uncovered 350 illegal immigrants. [...] Contrary to popular belief, illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. The victims may not have a voice, but they are low-paid, low-skilled American workers. Many are historically disadvantaged groups such as minorities...

American businesses are largely unprepared for a seismic workforce change that will get underway in the coming decade, as tens of millions of baby boomers retire and far fewer new employees arrive to take their place. That's the conclusion of a study being released today by Boston College's Center on Aging & Work. The report, which surveyed 578 companies and other organizations, finds that only 12 percent have planned in-depth and more than a quarter have failed to plan at all for the changing demographics projected to create a worker shortage. [...] Drawing on its employer survey, it finds that...

WASHINGTON -- Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said allowing more skilled immigrants to work in the United States would help keep the income gap from widening. Inequality of incomes is the "critical area where capitalist systems are most vulnerable," Greenspan said yesterday in Washington at a conference on maintaining the competitiveness of US capital markets convened by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. "You cannot have a system that we have unless the people who participate in it believe it is just." Allowing more skilled workers into the country would bring down the salaries of top earners in the United States,...

In time-honored tradition, recent political-economic discourse has revolved around some form of the “Two America’s,” the “Middle Class Squeeze,” or the “Rich vs. Poor.” This political minefield of “wealth creation versus redistribution” is no place for a business economist. But if there really is a huge swath of Americans experiencing falling incomes and living standards, this would signal some serious ramifications for the economy and for investors. For example, if incomes were falling, credit problems would likely proliferate, government tax revenues might be weak, interest rates could fall, and the economy would be at greater risk of recession than the...

Who, on average, is better paid—public school teachers or architects? How about teachers or economists? You might be surprised to learn that public school teachers are better paid than these and many other professionals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker

The US economy last year recorded its lowest rate of labour productivity growth in more than a decade, with growth in output per hour worked falling behind the EU and Japan. The fall casts further doubt on the ability of the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates as the US economy slows. Research to be published on Tuesday by the Conference Board, the international business organisation, shows that US labour productivity in the whole economy grew by 1.4 per cent in 2006 as slower economic growth was combined with a rapid rise in employment. [...] The US slowdown in whole...

In the first hundred hours of the just-started session of Congress, the new leadership promises to raise the minimum wage. The Democrats won't be opposed by many Republicans. Raising the minimum wage is definitely popular. Voters in six states approved higher minimums last Election Day. State politicians in both parties are practically drooling with eagerness to "help" lower-income workers. We all want the poor to make more money. So if government can raise wages by decree, why are the popular proposals so stingy? Let's really do something for the poor. Let's raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour. Even...

[...] When Mr. Bailey discovered that Mario was in the country illegally, he wanted to help him. So Mr. Bailey, [...]went to a lawyer to see if he could help Mario get a visa. That's when the president of Bailey Family Builders ran into a little-understood roadblock to legal immigration for the millions of Mexicans and others who perform manual-labor jobs in the U.S.: Only 5,000 work visas are available every year for unskilled laborers. "We don't have a system that recognizes the realities of the U.S. economy," said Mr. Bailey, president of the Home Builders Association of Dallas-Fort Worth....