Here’s a report card on labor on Labor Day 2014: Jobs: B- . The official unemployment rate is 6.2 percent but if you include everyone working part-time who’d rather be in full-time jobs, and all those too discouraged even to look for work, the real rate is closer to 12.5 percent. Wages: D. According to a new reform from the Economic Policy Institute, hourly wages dropped for nearly everyone from the first half of 2013 to the first half of 2014 (except for a small gain in the bottom 10 percent because of minimum-wage increases in 13 states this year). Job security: F. A higher proportion of jobs are part-time, temporary, contract, or otherwise with unpredictable wages and hours than at any time on record. Bargaining power: F. Most workers have none. After-tax corporate profits comprise their highest share of the economy in almost half a century, while worker pay the lowest share since 1948. The so-called “recovery” has bypassed most Americans. At the least, we must raise the minimum wage, expand the EITC, exempt the first $15,000 of income from payroll taxes and take the cap off income subject to it, invest in infrastructure and schools, and end austerity economics. What else?
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 14:06:59 +0000
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