That Raise Might Take 4 Years to Earn as Well(Wages Stagnant for grads)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-wages24jul24,0,2662782.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The economy has been steadily growing, with unemployment low and corporate profits at historic highs.

So why can't David Lewis get a decent raise?

Lewis worked his way up through a string of technology companies around San Jose, finally landing a $77,000-a-year Web design position. But in five years in that job, he received only a single 5% pay increase.

That was troubling for someone facing the rising costs of rent, food and raising a newborn daughter. But Lewis, 36, found it especially troubling because he had done what had traditionally helped Americans share in the benefits of a growing economy: He had earned a four-year college degree.

Wage stagnation, long the bane of blue-collar workers, is now hitting people with bachelor's degrees for the first time in 30 years. Earnings for workers with four-year degrees fell 5.2% from 2000 to 2004 when adjusted for inflation, according to White House economists.

[mcscajun]

1. Ha! David Lewis will get little pity from me...

He's making at entry what I made on exit three years ago when my IT department's work got shuffled off to India. And yes, I had a college degree.

Handwriting's on the wall for tech work...and $77,000 a year for a kid just out of college is DAMNED good money in ANY market, including the NYC area.

The women (including me) in the doctor's office where I work are getting about $12-13 an hour, and nobody's had a raise in years.

[pitohui]

2. boo hoo hoo well cry me a river

he makes $77,000 a year and he needs a raise?

my husband has worked all his life and couldn't dream of earning such a sum, same for my dad, same for just about everyone i know who is not a business owner

you want a job so you don't take any risk AND you want a huge income, what, just for getting the same bachelor's degree everyone else has that is only making $45K a year after 20 years

no pity here, that is a ridiculous story, all america has a four year degree, guess what, it don't make you special!

[RamboLiberal]

3. You need to look past David to the troubling trend

that the jobs that grow the middle class the wages are stagnant and actually dropping while the cost of everything goes up. During the 90's this wasn't happening. Don't know about the rest of you but I'm sick of hearing the Bushies tout how great the economy is. Like the 80's many workers are under-employed for their skill and education level. More from the article.

Employment recruiter Alan Guarino has seen a similar change in his work. He says about 15% of workers with four-year college degrees are working at "gray-collar" jobs below their skill level, such as in retail, mainly because they cannot find better-paying jobs; before 2001, the figure was about 10%.

"A very significant percentage of the jobs we are creating are contingent jobs," not salaried positions, said Guarino, chief executive of Cornell International, a staffing firm.

Jonathan Hess, 25, took a low-paying job — and then found himself falling further behind.

A graduate of UC Santa Cruz, Hess has been working as a clerk at a Borders bookstore in San Francisco. Until recently, he was earning $1,300 a month, living paycheck to paycheck. Then the manager reduced staffers' hours and forced them to use their vacation time to avoid unpaid leave.

[caligirl]

4. I know of two college grads in this boat. One, from Cal ( Berkley)with a

degree in physics working at Fry's and another just finished a UCSC with a degree in computer something. My son finishes at UCSC next spring and we are very concerned about his future job prospects. A UC degree use to mean something, it carried more weight than degrees from local community colleges and some private schools. Its tough to get admitted into a uc as a freshman unless you have some high grades and SAT scores. Now its looking less and less worth it to break your neck as ahigh school student to get into the top schools to get onto a brighter path.