U.S. wages barely increased in real terms since 1974, the year before Fast Track was first enacted, even as American worker productivity doubled. In 1974, the average hourly wage for American workers in today’s dollars was $18.46, while in 2012 it was up only 7 percent to $19.76. Over the same period, U.S. workers’ productivity more than doubled.7 Economists now widely name “increased globalization and trade openness” as a key explanation for the unprecedented failure of wages to keep pace with productivity, as noted in recent Federal Reserve Bank research.8 Even economists who defend status-quo trade policies attribute much of the wage-productivity disconnect to a form of labor arbitrage.9 From Prosperity Undermined During Era of Fast Tracked NAFTA and WTO Model Trade Agreements, Public Citizen. For more info, see Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch at tradewatch.org.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 18:50:19 +0000
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