alt.politics.economics

Video61@ wrote:

> why do i even bother answering you. stuff like what i am about to
>post has been posted many times, by many posters.
True, but not many of them make the leap from this statistic to a
statement that things have been all downhill for most Americans for
the last 30 years.

> your obsession to prove me wrong
Try to keep your paranoia under control. Someone questioning your
sources is not the same as an obsession to prove you wrong. In fact,
given your history, accepting what you post without questioning the
sources would be downright foolish.

>has caused you to keep stepping into a pile of steamy
>manure of your making.
My, you get nasty when the markets are up.

>this should give you pause, and at least
>remember that this is common knowledge.
>
>
> /
>
>The Fallout from Falling US Wages
>by Rick Wolff
>Real wages in the US rose during every decade from 1830 to 1970. Then
>this central feature of US capitalism stopped as the figures below
>show:
>
>Source: Labor Research Associates of New York based on data from the
>US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics; wages expressed in
>constant 1982 dollars.
>1964 $
>1974
>1984
>1994
>2004
So, from these averages (no distribution info here) you conclude that
it has been all downhill for most Americans.

Interesting to look behind the numbers. This article makes it look
like that is average wages for Americans. But looking at their source,
/wiki/ ?page=Wages+and+Benefits%3A+Real+Wages+%281964-2004%29
we see that it excludes public sector and farm workers. Guess they
don't count as Americans, so a statement about what has happened with
most Americans should be based on data that excludes them.

But wait, look further behind the numbers, and you see that these are
from the BLS's employer survey that is reviled as so unreliable when
it reports results that the whiners don't like. And it also represents
only earnings of nonsupervisory production workers. So, we have
another 1/5 of the nonfarm private workforce ignored in this
statistic.

Now, unlike some folks here, I don't imagine a great conspiracy in the
BLS in coming up with these numbers. I think they do show what they
claim, that there is a decrease in average real wages for private
nonfarm production and nonsupervisory workers. To get from that to a
statement that things have been going downhill for most Americans, you
would need to look at distributions, including the Americans excluded
in this statistic, and would also have to look at how a constant
cohort has fared. It is entirely possible that the averages and even
the decile points could be going down even while everyone is getting
real wage increases.

Given this single statistic in comparison with those from the census
bureau and congressional budget office, it's hard to conclude that it
has been all downhill for most Americans.

Here is a good selection of statistics from _The State of Working
America_ / /datazone_dznational
If you are looking for statistics to support your position, you can
pick and choose from those here. Others, who might be interested in
learning the truth, can learn from the sometimes conflicting data
honestly presented here.
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.