Labor & Employment Law

Low Wages Are Recession?s Ugly Trademark

By James Parks

Wages have fallen lower and stayed low longer in this recession than in any time since the Depression. With unemployment at 9 percent or better for 20 months and likely to stay that way for a while, wages will continue to drop.

Even the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) admits that wages for working people are heading down. In an article today, ”Downturn?s Ugly Trademark: Steep, Lasting Drop in Wages, ” the Journal reports that 54.9 percent of unemployed people who were lucky enough to find new jobs are making less than they did before and more than one-third (38.5 percent) took a 20 percent pay cut.

Dale Szabo, a Wisconsin man who lost his job as a manufacturing manager and holds two master?s degrees, sums up the bleak situation. Szabo, who now works as a janitor, tells the Journal:

It’s very hard work. I never dreamed I would be doing it. But I have to pay the bills.

What the Journal does not say is that corporations and Wall Street are getting filthy rich while the rest of us are struggling. It fails to mention the ?wealth gap,? which measures the difference in total net worth between the richest and poorest. The latest report shows the nation’s top 1 percent now have 225 times greater net worth than the median American family.

Or that corporations are sitting on $1.93 trillion as of Sept. 30?up from $1.8 trillion at the end of June?and not using some of that money to create jobs.

Check out the WSJ article here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on January 11, 2011 (boomark / email).