The study, done by the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, finds that wages for middle-income workers, adjusted for inflation, have not risen since 2003. Since 2001, real wages have only gone up 3 percent.
At the same time, productivity has shot up by 20 percent, meaning people are working harder for less money.
"The problem is that (workers\') contribution to the growing economy simply isn\'t showing up in their paychecks," said economic Jared Bernstein, one of the authors of the report. "And as the economy slows in mid-07, it\'s going to be tough to reverse the wage stagnation that\'s prevailed since late 2003. Workers have a right to wonder: is this as good as it gets?"
The gap between productivity and the wages of most workers is now larger than at any time in U.S. history, Bernstein and co-author Lawrence Mishel write.
Not everyone is suffering, however. Since 2001, the most highly paid workers have seen their wages rise by 9 percent, the report finds.
Bernstein and Mishel also looked at the problem of health care costs, which many employers argue are cutting into their ability to provide higher wages. That claim "doesn\'t match the data," they write. Their analysis shows that wage growth was slowest among workers whose employers don\'t provide health coverage.
Other findings of the report:
• Hourly wages for workers with a college degree grew no faster than for workers with only a high school degree: 2.6 percent for the college-educated versus 2.5 percent for those with high school only from 2000 to the middle of 2007. "More education still gives workers a considerable advantage over those with less education," Mishel explained, "but even college-educated workers are not making much progress these days."
• Since 2001 the share of the work-eligible population that is actually employed has fallen 1.2 percentage points, indicating that a growing segment of potential workers, abandoning the search for a job, has dropped out of the unemployment statistics.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States and around the world.
Read the full report, "Economy\'s Gains Fail to Reach Most Workers\' Paychecks," at www.epi.org/content.cfm/bp195
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The study, done by the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, finds that wages for middle-income workers, adjusted for inflation, have not risen since 2003. Since 2001, real wages have only gone up 3 percent.
At the same time, productivity has shot up by 20 percent, meaning people are working harder for less money.
"The problem is that (workers\’) contribution to the growing economy simply isn\’t showing up in their paychecks," said economic Jared Bernstein, one of the authors of the report. "And as the economy slows in mid-07, it\’s going to be tough to reverse the wage stagnation that\’s prevailed since late 2003. Workers have a right to wonder: is this as good as it gets?"
The gap between productivity and the wages of most workers is now larger than at any time in U.S. history, Bernstein and co-author Lawrence Mishel write.
Not everyone is suffering, however. Since 2001, the most highly paid workers have seen their wages rise by 9 percent, the report finds.
Bernstein and Mishel also looked at the problem of health care costs, which many employers argue are cutting into their ability to provide higher wages. That claim "doesn\’t match the data," they write. Their analysis shows that wage growth was slowest among workers whose employers don\’t provide health coverage.
Other findings of the report:
• Hourly wages for workers with a college degree grew no faster than for workers with only a high school degree: 2.6 percent for the college-educated versus 2.5 percent for those with high school only from 2000 to the middle of 2007. "More education still gives workers a considerable advantage over those with less education," Mishel explained, "but even college-educated workers are not making much progress these days."
• Since 2001 the share of the work-eligible population that is actually employed has fallen 1.2 percentage points, indicating that a growing segment of potential workers, abandoning the search for a job, has dropped out of the unemployment statistics.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States and around the world.
Read the full report, "Economy\’s Gains Fail to Reach Most Workers\’ Paychecks," at www.epi.org/content.cfm/bp195