Report Card: Workers worse off on pay, employment (for past 8 years)

Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK - This Labor Day finds workers in worse shape than they've been in years, according to a scorecard released Monday by Rutgers University.

In its first national labor scorecard, the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations said more than 10 percent of Americans are unemployed, discouraged from seeking work or underemployed. That is a nearly 25-percent increase from one year earlier.

Professor Douglas Kruse, a labor economist who created the scorecard, said a sharp decline in the number of Americans able to find full-time jobs, along with growing consumer debt and health care costs, were causes for concern.

<snip>

• The median weekly earnings for American workers have not grown in real terms over the last eight years.

• At $6.55, the federal minimum wage is worth 40 cents less per hour, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was a decade ago.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080901/ap_on_bi_ge/worker_report_card

who voted for Dumbya "Because he'll be better for the economy." is gonna get a copy of this....

I'll answer what we all know already, NO!!!

:kick:

The cost of living, particularly in health care and housing, is going through the roof. The worker's buying power has definitely eroded in recent years.

even tho' they don't use energy and food prices in determining it, it's still better than nothing.

and the American workers still lost ground

:(

Minimum-Wage Increase Fails - Rate Has Stayed Same for 9 Years

Overview

The FLSA establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments. Covered nonexempt workers are entitled to a minimum wage of not less than $5.85 per hour effective July 24, 2007; $6.55 per hour effective July 24, 2008; and $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009. Overtime pay at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay is required after 40 hours of work in a workweek.

(edit for stupid typo)

except that the small business lobbies would have a collective heart attack.

My life has totally sucked during the Bush administration.