http://www.changetowin.org/issues/jobs-and-wages.htmlFor working families in America, the size of their members' paychecks determines their income and quality of life. After decades of decline, average wages began to pick up in the late 1990s only to hit a wall in 2000. Six years later wage growth is still stalled.
Before tax, weekly wages of non-supervisory private sector workers in America today are below levels achieved in the early 1960s, and stand nearly 17% below their peak in 1972. Workers are now earning only 83 cents of every dollar they earned more than 35 years ago, while their productivity has increased a dramatic 80%. This is the central explanation for the explosion in corporate profits and the growing income gap in America, and the reason workers in America still believe the economy is moving in the wrong direction. All polls show that it is a big part of the reason why Republicans lost control of Congress.
The reason for this decline in wages and shift upward in the distribution of income are several -- but can be boiled down to unbridled pro-corporate globalization, and the right-wing attack on unions and workplace and job market protections.
In 1972, at the peak of real wages, union membership in the private sector stood at nearly 28%, whereas it is now below 8%. Today, 25% of American workers earn a wage that puts them at or below poverty, and the minimum wage is a third lower in value than it was in 1968. snip
Millions of workers have been able to achieve the American Dream over the last 70 years thanks to unions. The union movement led the fight for the minimum wage and the eight-hour work day, it pioneered employer-provided health care and pension plans for workers, it played a leading role securing Social Security and Medicare for seniors, and it won major advances ensuring workplace safety and workers' rights.
Today, unions are at the forefront of securing livable wages for all workers. Wages of union members are 28% higher than those of nonunion workers, on average. When you add up the much better health care and pension benefits union workers receive, the total compensation of union workers is 44% higher than that of non-union workers.
The more workers unite together in unions, the better off everyone is. But when unions are under attack, as they are today, workers face stagnant wages and declining health and retirement benefits.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
