Reply #28: From the trenches, I can say you are fairly accurate in your analysis.

[geckosfeet]

But,, here is my ground level view anyway!

Although in a practical in the trenches sort of way I am not sure what the academic community is seeing or even means in terms of "real compensation". Not only do lower income workers have few if any "benefits" from their jobs, but neither does this well educated formerly well employed poster. I think about a tiered employment system to provide some granularity to the analysis. It is the lower tiers that I feel deserve the most attention.

Consider seasonal jobs, high school and college students, migrants farm workers, super market part timers, coffee shop part timers, department store, Wal Mart employees, gas station attendants and so on. We see and interact with most of these occupational positions every day. Their labors help our country run. Do they uniformly have health insurance and benefits? These people are treated as consumable commodities. Culturally, as a nation, we accept this exploitation. To me, this seems like it would merit being factored into any analysis of "real compensation".

The next tier of employment may enjoy a more significant contribution to their "real compensation" from employer provided benefits. Here, wage stagnation is undeniable and is perhaps easily documented, although I have not done so but simply site my experience and published hearsay. Anyway, to include health and other insurance benefits would be more sensible in a "real compensation" analysis if these benefits were equally distributed across this employment tier. For example, national insurance or employer provided benefits that were similar from one workplace to the next would make this a far more effective and measurable argument.

I would further suggest that the effort to broadly put forward the notion that "real compensation" generally includes benefits is a national fraud. Its an academically correct way of saying "Be thankful you have a job". One effect of this is to legitimize the exploitation of the "workforce". This in turn creates an underclass of consumable laborers.

I would add that there are also many, like myself, who have lost good paying jobs and find themselves as less desirable job candidates due to age, health or other forms of workplace discrimination. In my case, now working on my own, making perhaps minimum wage on a hourly basis with NO benefits I find the concept of "real compensation" laughable.

Consider: Property taxes up: WAY UP. Home and vehicle maintenance, business expenses are way up as well. I would factor this into any analysis of "real compensation".

For me, what all this points to is national and government supported exploitation of the "workforce". We are, very effectively, being transformed into consumable commodities. Eliminating insurance, health care, pension plans etc. makes business more profitable and allows management to reward themselves with more extravagance. Bushco's attempt to take a portion of our national retirement program and put it into the hands of investment firms is to me, another awe inspiring attempt at giving to the already profitable corporate entities at the expense of the American citizen.

What further de-humanizations will we endure when the bill for our misguided international exploits comes due.