Summary
Compared to July 2000, inflation-adjusted [i.e., real] wages have remained relatively stagnant for the 80 percent of America's workforce classified as production and nonsupervisory workers. With average weekly hours having declined for members of this large labor cohort compared to five years ago, their average real weekly earnings are actually less today than they were in July 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Over a longer period of time - the past 25 years, for example - incomes earned by households in the lower half of the income- distribution spectrum have been growing at much slower rates than higher incomes have. From 1978 through 2003 (the latest year available), according to the Census Bureau, real household incomes at the 10th percentile, 20th percentile and 50th percentile (the median level) have increased by 8.1 percent, 9.7 percent and 12 percent, respectively. For the 80th, 90th and 95th percentiles, real household incomes have increased since 1978 by 28 percent, 35.7 percent and 40.1 percent. Thus, real household income (measured in constant 2003 dollars) at the 20th percentile has increased from $16,398 in 1978 to $17,984 in 2003 (or by less than 10 percent). Meanwhile, real household income at the 95th percentile has increased from $109,348 in 1978 to $154,120 in 2003 (or by more than 40 percent).See the full content of this document
Extract
Tying Skills to Wages
On July 21, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan appeared before the Senate Banking Committee. Liberal Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes of Maryland prefaced a question with this assertion: "Every statistical study shows a growing - a marked growing - inequality in the distributio...
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