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Why you haven’t gotten a pay raise
Washington Post ^ | 10/07/2014 | Catherine Rampell

Posted on 10/07/2014 6:49:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Why haven’t you gotten a raise?

In the past few years, corporate profits have climbed ever higher. Legions of unemployed people are now finding gainful employment, with joblessness finally falling below 6 percent. Meanwhile, if you’re anything like the average American worker, your pay has been flat, just barely keeping pace with inflation. If you’re in the very middle of America’s income distribution, in fact, your overall household income is lower today than it was when the recession officially ended more than five years ago.

This is all a bit of a puzzle.

Usually unemployment declines go hand in hand with raises, after a slight lag. As the pool of idle workers shrinks, employers must offer higher pay to attract, and retain, labor. This time they are not, even though employers are increasingly complaining about the kinds of talent shortages that usually lead to upward wage pressures: Nearly half of the firms that filled or attempted to fill job openings in the past three months said there were “few” or “no” qualified applicants available, according to a National Federation of Independent Business survey.

There are a few possible explanations behind the missing wage growth.

One has to do with the mix of jobs being created. Some research has shown that jobs lost during the recession were disproportionately in high- and mid-wage industries (e.g., construction), while those gained in the recovery have been concentrated in low-wage industries (e.g., retail). Perhaps wage stagnation is just an illusion, created by this shift. The Labor Department’s Employment Cost Index, however, strips out the influences of changing industry and occupational composition and still shows relatively flat wages.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: payraise; salaries; salary
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1 posted on 10/07/2014 6:49:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Errr... could the increasing healthcare costs to companies due to Obamacare and the increasing cost of complying with regulations not have anything to do with it?


2 posted on 10/07/2014 6:50:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind (If at first you don't succeed, put it out for beta test.)
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To: SeekAndFind

But..but...but...Didn’t “O” tell us the economy is ‘doing great’?


3 posted on 10/07/2014 6:53:38 AM PDT by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: SeekAndFind

For employers it’s a buyer’s market.

Boeing now wants masters degrees...because they can. And they’re not the only ones.


4 posted on 10/07/2014 6:53:52 AM PDT by Aria ( 2008 & 2012 weren't elections - they were coups d’état .)
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To: SeekAndFind

” with joblessness finally falling below 6 percent.”

there’s that lie again.


5 posted on 10/07/2014 6:54:12 AM PDT by Norm Lenhart
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To: SeekAndFind
In the past few years, corporate profits have climbed ever higher.

Right out of the gate, the article goes for an "Occupy Wall Street" take on matters.

6 posted on 10/07/2014 6:54:13 AM PDT by Alex Murphy ("the defacto Leader of the FR Calvinist Protestant Brigades")
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To: SeekAndFind

Yep.

My total compensation has increased significantly, over the last three years - all of it in increased health care costs. My take-home has gone down.


7 posted on 10/07/2014 6:57:43 AM PDT by jdege
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To: SeekAndFind
"Legions of unemployed people are now finding gainful employment,"

BS. During the period when the "unemployment rate" went from 6.1 to 5.9 there was a net LOSS of jobs in the country. Somebody please tell me how that possible without cooking the books or having a significant portion of your population just suddenly die off.

8 posted on 10/07/2014 7:02:27 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: SMARTY

Were one to need an excample of “exceptional cluelessness”, all they would have to do is cite this article.

Really, is the WaPo that desperate that they hire complete economic illiterates?
The author must have skipped the same classes as the Obamadork-thing-felon-cretin.


9 posted on 10/07/2014 7:04:34 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: Da Coyote

By now, I’m pretty sure “O” never SAW a text book or the inside of a class room.


10 posted on 10/07/2014 7:05:25 AM PDT by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: SeekAndFind
Usually unemployment declines go hand in hand with raises...

1. Forget pay raises. Look at what the cost of employment to the employer is. Every penny of that cost that goes to regulation or taxation comes directly out of the employees pocket. If I started paying someone $15/hr with an additional cost of employment of $5/hr, and now that additional cost of employment is $10/hr, the employee has lost $5/hr to the government.

2. Unemployment has NOT gone down, only government statistics have. Lines on charts don't employ people.

3. With record numbers of people looking for meaningful employment, there is no natural pressure to increase wages. Wages are set by market forces, and those forces are absent.

11 posted on 10/07/2014 7:09:42 AM PDT by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: SeekAndFind
The basic issue here is quite simple:

It's not really the employer that determines compensation levels for its workers. Ultimately, it's the customer who dictates these things. This puts the employer in a position where the upward pressure on wages in a tight labor market (hypothetically speaking, as this is not a tight labor market) competes with the downward pressure on prices from customers.

12 posted on 10/07/2014 7:09:53 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("What in the wide, wide world of sports is goin' on here?")
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To: SeekAndFind

I got myself a pay raise.
It involved finding a better job and resigning from the dead end one.


13 posted on 10/07/2014 7:13:57 AM PDT by EricT. (Everything not forbidden is compulsory.)
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To: Aria

Companies are setting their sights too high purposely so they can say US citizens are unqualified and demand more foreign workers. If enough US citizens had Master’s Degrees, they’d want doctorates. On the lower end of the spectrum, US workers are competing with invaders, legal and illegal.


14 posted on 10/07/2014 7:13:58 AM PDT by grania
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To: jdege
My total compensation has increased significantly, over the last three years - all of it in increased health care costs. My take-home has gone down.

The article builds to this conclusion:

The most optimistic explanation suggests that Americans might be on the verge of getting a long-awaited raise after all...The share of businesses saying they expect to increase compensation in the coming months is finally creeping up, and more consumers are expecting income gains in the year ahead than at any time since Lehman imploded in 2008. For the sake of the economy, public coffers and your pocketbook, let’s hope they’re right.
That huge bump you're about to get in your paycheck? It's (most of) the amount your employer had been paying for your employer-paid medical coverage, and what a coincidence! It's open-enrollment time, and you just discovered that your employer no longer offers medical insurance, and they're now paying you the premiums formerly paid to your insurance company.
15 posted on 10/07/2014 7:15:31 AM PDT by Alex Murphy ("the defacto Leader of the FR Calvinist Protestant Brigades")
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To: SeekAndFind
My wife, who works as a nurse, got three raises in the last three years swallowed up by Obama.

The first one got eaten by the increased Social Security tax. The second and third ones gotten by Obamacare Premiums (and we are supposed to save $2400?).

This year the Hospital announced that no one would get raises because of Obamacare.

Please join us and Vote your Displeasure at this Administration and their lying cohorts!

16 posted on 10/07/2014 7:16:23 AM PDT by sr4402
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To: sr4402

Be grateful for not going backwards all along. Most have.


17 posted on 10/07/2014 7:17:35 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry
Be grateful for not going backwards all along. Most have.

So my wife is supposed to be grateful to Obama??? There is a square needle.

18 posted on 10/07/2014 7:23:27 AM PDT by sr4402
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To: sr4402

Be grateful that your circumstance isn’t worse than it is, because it certainly could be. Thank God, the fates or luck of the draw. Obama may be responsible but it’s not hitting all equally.


19 posted on 10/07/2014 7:26:47 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: jdege
That's the case with most of us. We will soon have our annual enrollment meeting to explain how much more the company is paying for health insurance, how much more we are going to have to pay in some combination of increased deductibles, increased premiums and co-pays and reduced benefits . . . and how little it really is compared to what the company is eating.

Last year, our HR manager doing this presentation told us this is what America voted for . . . and more than a few of us shouted " . . . thanks to the jackwagons who voted for Obama" or words to that effect. We were NOT rebuked.

20 posted on 10/07/2014 7:27:59 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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