Tag Archives: wages

Real pay data show Trump’s ‘blue collar boom’ is more of a bust for US workers, in 3 charts

When looking at your paycheck, don’t forget about inflation. Leif Skoogfors/Getty Images

David Salkever, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

If you thought workers’ hourly pay was finally rising, think again.

At first glance, the latest data – which came out on Feb. 7 – look pretty good. They show nominal hourly earnings rose 3.1% in January from a year earlier.

But the operative word here is nominal, which means not adjusted for changes in the cost of living. Once you factor in inflation, the picture changes drastically. And far from representing a “blue collar boom” – as the president put it in his State of the Union address – the real, inflation-adjusted data show most U.S. workers have not benefited from the growing economy. Continue reading

Share Button

“You Can’t Eat GDP”: Reminder That Most Workers Are Struggling as Trump and Corporate Media Tout Economic Growth

“Any administration would tout a strong GDP report like today’s, but if it’s not reaching workers’ paychecks, which it isn’t, then cease the applause.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-27-2018

Photo: SEIU/Twitter

As President Donald Trump and corporate media outlets on Friday enthusiastically touted new GDP figures showing that the U.S. economy grew by 4.1 percent in the second quarter of 2018, many economists and progressive commentators were quick to counter the glowing headlines by pointing out that corporations and the rich are feasting on most of the growth while workers see their wages fall.

“What the president won’t talk about is that there is slow—and even negative—growth in real wages adjusted for inflation. So if GDP is rising, but wages [are] falling, the money is going to the top,” Timothy McBride, a health economist at Washington University in St. Louis, noted in response to Trump’s celebratory speech on the White House lawn on Friday. Continue reading

Share Button

The 6-Step Process to Wipe Out the Poor Half of America

Published by CommonDreams.org on December 15, 2014.

By Paul Buchheit

One of the themes of the superb writing of Henry Giroux is that more and more Americans are becoming “disposable,” recognized as either commodities or criminals by the more fortunate members of society. There seems to be a method to the madness of winner-take-all capitalism. The following steps, whether due to greed or indifference or disdain, are the means by which America’s wealth-takers dispose of the people they don’t need.

Continue reading

Share Button