HOW LOW CAN OUR WAGES GO:

[OHdem10]

There is a downward spiral of wages in US.

Marmar posted Latest Data from SS ADM. 10/21

The Median Income in US has dropped to $26,363 annually

One half the country now earns 26,363 and under.
The other half earns 24,363 and above

It has only been a short few years that median was
'37,000 dollars and before that in 40s.

Until recently a family with children earning 26,000 qualified
for some assistance from the Government.

When you average the incomes together the average is 40K.
The average is much higher than the Median because all
the HiGH INCOMES pull the average up.

In a more balanced system the 40K average income and
the Median Income would be much closer together.

This further emphasizes the GAP between the Rich and Poor

That 26,363 is a real drop. How low will we go as
we harmonize downward to compete with developing world??

[NYC_SKP]

1. Is it really fair for Americans to earn more than Guatemalans, Vietnamese, etc.?

Welcome to Globalism, sold to us all by both parties during the 1990's.

TPTB are looking for worker bees to earn only one penny more than would qualify them form public assistance.

That's how to increase profit.

And if you complain your job can be outsourced or some unemployed person will happily take your spot.

........

[dkf]

2. How low can prices go?

With mobile Internet, there is even more downward pressure on prices as you can research everything. It's the cheapness of the American public that does this.

[femrap]

5. The American public

is also willfully ignorant. They can't see that shopping at Walmart is hurting Americans. And the idiots that use the Self-Check-Out lanes at the grocery are allowing yet more Americans to be UNEMPLOYED.

If we can get a few Too Big To Fails to belly-up, Globalization may soon find its own destruction. IMHO, Globalization is on its last leg....at least I hope so.

Workers Unite....We are the 99%.

[customerserviceguy]

19. I'm an idiot?

For wanting to get out of the store a bit quicker, when all I have to buy is a jug of milk or some fresh whole bean coffee?

I more often than not do use the checkout lane with a person checking things out, but there are two main reasons for that. One is that I often buy meats that have a $1 or $2 off coupon attached that must be removed by the checker, who can make sure that it's something that is near or at its pull date. The other is that the self-scan checkstands often are not fully maintained, they don't properly scan, it's a pain in the ass to look up produce codes, etc.

I rarely use bank tellers anymore, either.

[Politicalboi]

29. I guess I'm one of those idiots too

I only wish there were more self check outs. They are a RARE find anywhere. Isn't my time worth money? Why must I wait in along line if the self check out is open and empty? Like I said there aren't many of them around to have an effect.

[femrap]

34. In my part of the country,

they are about HALF of the check-out. You'd be so very happy...after all it's all about your time and who gives a rat's ass about your fellow neighbor, right?

Drank any tea lately?

[PETRUS]

7. One problem is that we do not have free markets.

The wealthiest and most powerful among us continually work to rig the system in such a way to give themselves further advantage. Not all prices (including wages) are subject to the same downward pressures. This situation could have been predicted. Our economic system promotes a concentration of property and power into a few hands - that creates a situation that invites corruption and abuse. People understand this intuitively - that is why 80%+ agree with statements like "Wall Street has too much influence in government."

[dkf]

10. The margins are such that you need volume.

Mom and pop with their one store can't survive on Walmart's margins

[PETRUS]

11. I know what you're talking about

having once made my living by importing consumer goods from Asia - you couldn't get a factory to tool up for orders numbering fewer than 10,000 units, say. (Although the margins were freakin' awesome!) But yes, in this kind of business, volume matters.

But it's kind of an oblique response, and has nothing to do with my point about American business operating in a rigged, unfair environment...

[Mosby]

30. thats not it

Mom and pop can't negotiate prices with manufacturers and wholesalers like the big retailers do so they have to sell stuff with much lower margins if they want to compete retail price wise. They would LOVE to have gross margins like best buy, walgreens and walmart but they can't.

[kenny blankenship]

3. You will have to be willing to work for $170 per MONTH to compete with Chinese labor

That's how deep a suppression of US wages the "Free Traders", like Obama, have in mind for you.

[FarCenter]

4. Inflation adjusted wages are still higher than they were in the '50s and '60s

[femrap]

6. I don't know

what cooked-up statistics you are reading, but I lived in the '50's and '60's and our family was much better off than today. Maybe you are looking at HOUSEHOLD WAGES. Remember, back then only one family member had to work outside of the home...not the 2 of today. Hell, the kids are working outside the home today.

Just by your name....FarCenter, I am disinclined to believe your information....especially without a link. And I don't believe links from The Heritage Foundation or other anti-worker sites.

Seeing the Median Income fall like this tells me all I need to know. The only jobs out there are paying $8 to $10/hour. What are you? Rich on Inherited Wealth?

eta for spelling.

[FarCenter]

14. Maybe your family was better off in the '50s, but that wasn't generally true

Wages rose after the post WW II recession throughout the '50s and '60s. They generally peaked for a while after '74, and then have increases modestly or not at all in the subsequent decades.

Two things happened in '73-'74:
- the Arab oil embargo, and
- peak crude oil production in the United States.

Prior to '74, the Texas Railroad Commission essentially controlled oil prices in the US by telling Texas producers the percentage of full production that they could actually pump. Subsequent to the oil embargo, they told producers to pump all they could, but found that the producers couldn't actually increase their rates. Subsequently, cheap energy inputs to the US economy ceases, and it has grown much more slowly until around '00. After '00 any growth was just the housing and credit bubble.

On the other hand, there are lots of things available to most people now that were not available in '55. Most drugs, medical appliances, diagnostic tools, operations, etc. were not available then, and they have been invented since. Medical care may have been inexpensive in '55, but it was quite limited. A plain black dial telephone with line cost as much as a cellphone in inflation adjusted terms, but there was no nationwide calling then. Phone calls were around a $1 / minute for long distance. Television sets were black and white, and 21" was a large set. They were very expensive and the tubes failed frequently.

So remove your rose colored retro glasses.

Most graphs of inflation adjusted income look like this one:
http://visualizingeconomics.com/2008/05/04/average-income-in-the-united-states-1913-2006/

[Capitalocracy]

15. Average income includes the people who make millions a year.

The kind of income inequality we live under, where most people make less than $30,000 a year but some people are making hundreds of millions a year, skews an average beyond all recognition. A mean income is much more representative of what real people are going through.

And that chart comes from an organization whose slogan is "making the invisible hand visible", which pretty much tells me all I need to know about that chart.

[femrap]

17. I have no

rose-colored glasses. In the 1950's I happened to be a part of the first generation of single-mother households. I got $10/week in Child Support. We were lucky to have an old Plymouth w/ NO radio. We lived in a 2-bedroom, 1 bath house that cost $10,000 to build.

My mother and I went to the laundramat every Friday night after 'splurging' on a dinner at Frisch's.

My mother set aside money every week for savings/rainy days. My mother sewed lots of my clothes. We lived on my grandfather's farm and I went to school in a small town that had very good schools (back then, schools were pretty decent). My grandfather moved the fencing so my mom could build a small house...the cattle had to adjust.

We ate corn-on-the-cob that my grandfather grew. My mother and grandparents had lived through The Great Depression and they knew Struggle. No one went into debt. We lived within our means and Consumerism didn't attract any of my family.

State College Tuition was reasonably affordable and since I was somewhat intelligent, I received scholarships, grants and a Fed loan. Now College is not affordable for the Middle Class. In fact the only Middle Class left is THE FORMER MIDDLE CLASS.

However, I was blessed to have seen The Beatles TWICE. Tickets were $5.00.

No, I don't have rose-colored glasses. This country has been massacred by the 24/7 propaganda of the MSM. The Rich have ruined our educational system. Corporations have bought our politicians. Shame is a thing of the past. Integrity is a thing of the past. Greed rules. Thank Goddess for OWS...I've been waiting for this movement for decades.

Again, you must be living on Inherited Wealth....and obviously didn't live during the '50's or '60's.

ETA: We didn't need no fucking 42" flat screen back then. And my B&W lasted for 20 years. Cars lasted forever back then. Had a '66 Mustang and eventually we took the engine out and put in a Falcon. We could afford to get sick back then...even go the Emergency Room...not now. Tetanus shot in ER in 1989 was $300...I can't imagine what it is now. The cost to my parents for having me in a hospital was $25 in 1953. No, I enjoy the simplicities of life...the beauty of nature and good conversation. I don't need a fucking 42" TV....shit, there's nothing on TV worth watching!!!! 'Redneck Handfishing?' Our culture is crap now....enjoy it. You have no idea how much FUN we had growing up. And it all stopped in 1980 w/ Raygun!

So take all of your possessions and give them a big, fat kiss.

[FarCenter]

20. I grew up on a farm in Minnesota

I was about 8 when we got running water in the house. My mother sewed clothes as well as raised chickens, canned our fruits and vegetables from a garden and the orchards, baked all our bread, and took care of us. The house was heated with a wood stove and an oil burning space heater. We did not have television.

I attended school at a one-room school house with about a dozen other kids. The teacher had one year of training beyond high school. The library was a single bookcase.

Clothing was limited to a pair of shoes, a couple pairs of jeans, and about 4 shirts a year. Overcoats were usually hand-me downs from cousins, etc. One year's "school clothes" became the next years work clothes.

When I was a teenager, I worked for neighboring farmers at tasks like stacking hay bales all day in the hot sun for the going rate of $1/hour.

Never saw the Beatles or any other rock concert. Maybe saw 5 movies before I went to a state college after high school.

[femrap]

23. So now you

have fancy medical appliances, hospital operations, big TVs, and cell phones. Feel better? Sounds like you had healthy food as a kid...who doesn't like homemade bread? And Wood Stoves are WARM!!

So you're just pissed that you didn't have TV when you were a kid? How many TVs do you own now? Sorry you don't look back on your youth with a smile but with a grimace. You got to go to college. Seems you were born far away from a town of any size...who do you blame for that?

And your little chart made my case....the '50's and '60's were an upward time in our country. Wages have been flat to declining ever since.

[girl gone mad]

22. You are as informed on this topic..

as you are about the BOA derivatives.

Which is to say not at all informed. But extremely opinionated.

[FarCenter]

31. Download the reports from the OCC and look for yourself

http://www.occ.gov/topics/capital-markets/financial-markets/trading/derivatives/derivatives-quarterly-report.html is an index to the OCC quarterly reports on derivatives.

Table 1 of each report is NOTIONAL AMOUNT OF DERIVATIVE CONTRACTS - TOP 25 COMMERCIAL BANKS AND TRUST COMPANIES.

Table 2 of each report is NOTIONAL AMOUNT OF DERIVATIVE CONTRACTS - TOP 25 HOLDING COMPANIES IN DERIVATIVES

If you look at the 4Q08 versus the 1Q09 report, you will see that BofA derivatives increase from $38.3 to 39.1 trillion, while BAC derivatives jump from 39.1 to 77.9 trillion, representing the effects of the Merrill Lynch merger.

Subsequently, the total derivatives of the holding company are relatively constant at around trillion, while the BofA bank derivatives (Table 1 by quarter) climb to 52.5 trillion by the end of 1Q11. This represents a gradual shift of the derivatives buisines to the bank.

Then looking at 2Q11, the last quarter released, you can see that BofA derivatives are 53.2 trillion, while the BAC derivatives are 74.8 trillion.

The action being taken by Banc America Corporation is to move the remaining Merrill Lynch derivatives to BofA, so that the entire $74.8 trillion will be in the bank and not at the holding company level. As you can see from Tables 1 and 2 of the 2Q11 report, this is the same situation as for JPMC, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

Now, you too can be both opinionated and informed.

[Ikonoklast]

9. Total bullshit.

From the Commerce Dept.:




Those numbers are adjusted for inflation.

Watch a lot of Fox News, do you? Just post bullshit as 'fact'?

[socialindependocrat]

12. Farcenter - git outta here!!!! n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Alas the inequality and lack of social mobility

We currently have did not exist in the 1950s or 1960s... By the way this is historic fact.

Oh and tell me how common was the two household income?

[FarCenter]

21. I thought that the two income household was supposed to be a great social advance

No more was the little woman held captive in the thrall of an endless round of canasta parties with her neighbors, while her husband was able to self-actualize himself in a successful career at the office.

I'll have to look for statistics, but from 1945 to around 1970 when household incomes were rising, I don't think that the percentage of two income households increased a whole lot. That went up more after 1970 and women's lib. It also went up when the economy shifted more from agriculture and heavy industry to light industry and service occupations. For example, women in telecommunications jobs like central office technician or pole climbers didn't occur until the mid '70s.

Go to http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 and change years to 1948 to 2011. Workforce participation rate was essentially flat at from 58 to 60% during 1950 to 1970, then rose linearly to 67% by 1990, was flat to 2000, and dropped to 64% in 2011. The increase from 1970 to 1990 was largely women coming into the workforce. The recent drop is probably both men and women -- there seem to be more one wage-earner couples where the woman is working.

[Capitalocracy]

24. The problem isn't that women working is now acceptable

the problem is that two incomes are now necessary for basic survival.

[FarCenter]

26. Apparently over 60% of married couples with children get by on one income

While the proportion of wives working year-round in married couple households with children has increased from 17% in 1967 to 39% in 1996, the proportion of such households among the general population has decreased.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Household_income_over_time

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Try the department of labor

Walls are easier though.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Bingo

[hfojvt]

8. it would be nice to see the data

I am not finding information on past medians. Wiki has median income (for men) as $31,000 in 2000 (in 2004 dollars) and $30,513 in 2004.

But also I would point out that a drop in the median does not mean wages are going down. At least not in nominal terms. In real terms, wages are not keeping up with inflation. One reason for that is that people in this country generally do not get paid wages. They get paid "wages + health insurance subsidy". My health insurance only went up by 2.9% this year, but in recent years it has gone up much more.

Naturally at this point, I cannot find my data for previous years. I have those pages around here somewhere, but it seems to me that it has gone up by 8% or 10% or more. When health insurance costs go up, then employer expenses go up and employers tend to reduce wage increases.

The other part is the unemployment rate. Many people have lost jobs and are either still looking for work, working at a lower paying job or working part-time when they used to work full time. That tends to bring the median down. A bunch of people who used to be above the median (when they had jobs) have now fallen below the median. That brings the median down. As the economy improves (slowly) the median will come back up.

[rsmith6621]

13. Is There A Link.....

...to this data..

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Well things could get worst

The Stewart industrial code with it's penchant for MAXIMUM wages can come back.

This indignados, OWS Et al, is the begining of the reaction to this crap.

[minavasht]

25. Supply and demand

Businesses are not in the business of making jobs, their goal is lower cost.
If there are plenty of workers, they can lower the wages and still find people to work for these wages.

Same as everything else - start running vehicles on water and gas prices will plummet.

[Life Long Dem]

32. Pre-Reagan, Post-Reagan.

[Capitalocracy]

33. I wish that chart showed the 1% pre-Reagan.

Although it makes its point perfectly clear anyway.