Why are wages flat and have been flat for many years????

Could it be that businesses can't afford to give the working stiffs a raise because that money had to cover the 30% increase year on year for health coverage???

and service sector jobs have shitty pay. Wages go down as manufacturing jobs leave.

productivity.

but health care costs are also part of the answer too.

If we can ever get over the hero-worship of Reagan and the disastrous economic policy thinking that carry on right to this day, we may be able to start seeing some semblence of progress again. Until then, we are all slaves to the upper class' pursuit of the almighty dollar :(

I need a new dartboard.

:hi:

Productivity has rose 28% in last decade.
The GDP has rose 11%.

Companies simply took the increased labor and kept the gains from it.

who expect DEMAND at least a 10% INCREASE in profits from year to year EVERY year. or they'll take their money elsewhere, thank-you very much.

I'm yelling at the TV again...only now in public (at the gym).

...oops. Wait a minute....

in fact it has turned into a rout

The destruction of unions (and other popular economic pressure groups) during the Reagan years was part of it.

The deliberate distraction of large parts of the rural working class with "God, Guns, and Gays" is another part of it.

International trade agreements designed to allow exploitation of the cheapest labor source is a third.

The relative share of national income among various groups is determined by who has political power.

We don't have the power, so we lose income

Unions have raised the standards for all workers, by setting scales, and lack of union membership has dropped dramatically, the power of the working class is affected.

..twenty-six of the last twenty-nine years, and they have been energetically and enthusiastically enabling the corporate greedheads to pursue a strategy of cheap labor as a way of consolidating their joint hold on power.

Very simple, really.

helpfully,
Bright

(ed. to correct amazing math error)

i think at some point we need to accept that capitalists give workers the bare minimum of pay/benefits that they can get away with -- they really don't give a damn about you except for what they themselves can earn off you

even small businesses that don't give benefits still provide shitty wages, sometimes even shittier wages than the large corporations

Big business is in bed with the party that has the political to make policy. Dems/Rebubs doesn't matter, they hedge their bets. You don't hear Merrill Lynch, AIG, GMC, Bank of America, CitiGroup, Capital One, etc complaining about Obama being in office.

Why do you complain about small business paying small wages, do you think they can pay you 80k a year for flipping burgers or serving ice cream? What do you think their payroll is? Most of us have had a min wage job at some point but this is usually a means to an end.

Unions of old, good. Unions today, bad. Case in point, NYC 700 teachers paid 65million a year to do nothing because they have to go before 23 arbitrators before getting canned. Union leaders do not care about their members, they do not care about the company their members work for, look at GM. GM's union made it almost impossible to make a profit. 140k severance packages, great insurance for sure, the fact is that union leaders care about there members as much as politicians do about their constituents.

Reagan economic policies? Are you forgetting who came before him?

Vote out all incumbents, career politicians have gotten us to this point.

Carter policies would have helped the economy tremendously by making the USA lees dependent on imported energy

After WWII, the G.I. Bill enabled the returning service men to get a good education, therefore making the 50's and 60's a heyday of American ingenuity. Unfortunately the availability of education has sharply declined from that generation, producing a brain drain that has been exploited by the Conservative idealogy of "keep 'em dumb and on the run".

We as a country need free education and healthcare. Other industrialized nations have this and are now above us in innovation and invention. The sum total being the U.S. slowly turning into a 3rd world country.

I can't believe you fell for that crap line.

we start bitching. Where were you 25 years ago when Zombie Reagan marginalized labor and education? A generation that wouldn't let Nixon steamroll over the people were completely absent when the Reagan administration (with alot of the same behind the scene monsters that Nixon had) constantly broke laws and shit on the Constitution. Instead of an impeached and disgraced Reagan/Bush, we get the "hero" Oliver North(**spit**) and a completely conservative lapdog media. The crap line is this, an educated and healthy populace is a Liberal populace. An un-educated and sick populace is a Conservative poplulace.

claimed that the government got a return of $14 in taxes for every $1 worth of WWII GI benefits. I thought at the time that made GI benefits a pretty good investment and wondered why we didn't do the same thing for every citizen

Knock $20 million off that bonus and everybody down below is covered and has a raise.

Americans over-use credit cards because of an addiction to granite counter tops and eating out. No real discussion of the huge inflation of prices for basics like housing, health, and education.

For a culture that's got a perpetual hard-on for "responsibility" we are certainly very quick to absolve ourselves of it as soon as things go south.

was regrettable? Do you think a woman's place is in the home?

That instead of mom going to work resulting in a better standard of living it barely kept families at the same standard of living.
Now families with 2 full time workers barely have the standard of living that a single family earner made 40 years ago.

Also very few women can even afford the "choice" to stay home full time anymore.
I doubt that was the goal of woman's lib to use the extra labor provided by women to keep wages stagnant over last 30 years.

One could wish that a single income household could have a livable wage ($60K a year) and IF a woman wanted to also work the average income would be $120K ish for 2 income household.

When I worked for county government they gave me a piece of paper showing what my 'actual'
pay was. And this was a mandatory health care even though I already had health care under
my spouses plan. Weird.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont/86

The corporcratic conspirators since Reagan never had any intention of raising our wages. We were the next grand experiment in this glorified larceny known as Friedman Economics. That it was installed permanently in a country of this size proves just how uncaring about the future and welfare of this nation's workers our corporate leaders are. These people think of us as nothing more that oxygen-theiving, barely useful pieces of dogshit.

Labor is a buyers market and will remain so for a very long time.

As Bruce Springsteen said in a song, "Those jobs are gone, boys, and they ain't comin' back."

Not everywhere. I just read that many bankers and wall street brokers have been experiencing unprecedented income escalations.

plus the employee pool is large...people accept lower wages and bad working conditions when there is high unemployment because there are 100's willing to take the job.

Or at least paraphrase. I thought that the rich would kick in their due, like the gilded ages of old. The neuvo-riche feel NO sense of duty to their society. So, there is no payback. Just more fleecing.

After Reagan, spitting on the weak was a national sport. May he rot in hell.

Someone alert the "Democratic" party! Quick!!!

And that is not going to change.

It's a structural condition of capitalist social organization. And there's no working around it.

I love being able to buy whatever I want without any conscience. I have a "union yes!" avatar, but my car was made by $10/hour non-union workers in Alabamma. I'm typing this on my Macbook Pro (Made in China!)

Still, it's just not fair that *my* job is subject to competition!