Posted on 12/08/2006 4:43:25 AM PST by shrinkermd
With energy prices now sharply lower than a few months ago and the improving job market forcing employers to offer higher raises, the buying power of American workers is now rising at the fastest rate since the economic boom of the late 1990s.
The average hourly wage for workers below management level — everyone from school bus drivers to stockbrokers — rose 2.8 percent from October 2005 to October of this year, after being adjusted for inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Only a year ago, it was falling by 1.5 percent.
In recent years, many Americans grew anxious about the future and economists questioned whether the recovery from the 2001 recession would ever produce genuine gains for ordinary workers.
The fall in unemployment to 4.4 percent and the recent surge in wages, however, raise the prospect that the job market could be on the brink of another strong run, much like the one that lifted incomes in the late 1990s.
“The labor market is pretty tight right now, so it’s not a huge surprise that we’ve started to see big wage gains,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for the research firm Global Insight. “I think the big surprise is that it took so long.”
Still, there are a number of economic forces at work that raise doubts about whether the recent gains are the start of another boom. It is also possible, economists say, the improvement may turn out to be little more than a temporary spike
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
With the NYT good news comes after one election and before another. Note also all the hesitations about even admitting things are better.
The economy has been good. But once the Dems take over, you can kiss all this good news goodbye.
This is great news. And just the day before yesterday, I overheard one of the network newscasts (it may have been ABC) reporting on the strength of our manufacturing sector. Nice to hear just after an Election.
Reporting changes depends totally on what is sampled.
In IT shops I'm familiar with, IT wages surged in 2002 to 2005. But no increases in 2006. In 2003 I was in a pentecostal church where a lady got up and "praised the Lord" because she had received a 10% pay raise. There was an embarrassed nervousness.
Then a guy got up. It turned out he and almost everyone in the church had received increases of 15-20% earlier in 2003, regardless of occupation. But they had not yet thanked the Lord. They had considered it a normal event and not something supernatural. (I also had a 15% increase each in 2003 and 2004.)
So it's all in the way we look at it.
Look at housing. When prices go up, the pessimist says we can't afford those high prices. But when prices go down the same pessimist is also bent out of shape.
How stupid does the lamestream media have to be to remain in perpetual astonishment that the free market REALLY DOES WORK?
For those with a modicum of technical skills the effective unemployment rate has been about 1.4% for over a year. Recruiting and retention are the top two drivers for growth for most of the companies with whom I work. Employer funded education and training receive almost as much attention as health care from Human Resources.
Since the Bush tax cuts, the economy has been roaring, in spite of the RINOs in Congress inabilty to control spending. No doubt the dims will find a way to wage class warfare and screw it up with massive tax increases and additional irresponsible spending.
It is a truly sad commentary on the state of government in this country when the best that our economy can hope for is gridlock. If one REALLY wants to improve the economic lot of the poor and middle class, get the total (Federal, State, and local) amount of government spending in this country under 25% of GDP.
And sho' nuff, that's all we see now. And the RATS haven't even took control yet. Wait till January, it will become the biggest boom in U.S. World History, all thanks to the Dems.
I meant to ping you to the article, and my comment #3.
WGIDS.
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