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The ‘low-wage recovery’ is a myth
Washington Post ^ | 05/21/2015 | Robert Samuelson

Posted on 05/21/2015 7:43:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Guess what? This isn’t a low-wage job recovery. Listen to the media, and you might think that the only kind of jobs being created are in fast-food restaurants and retail chains. It turns out that this is wildly misleading and that the economy’s employment profile — the split between high- and low-paying jobs — hasn’t changed much since the recession or, indeed, the turn of the century.

Put differently, the share of high-wage jobs is just below one-third of all employment, roughly where it was in 2000 and 2007 — the last year before the financial crisis. Similarly, the share of low-paying jobs is about one-quarter of the total, not much different from 2000 and 2007.

The figures come from Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning research and advocacy group. At my request, she examined whether the recession has shifted the economy’s job distribution.

To do this, she divided businesses into three groups by their pay. Today’s average hourly pay is $25. Low-paying employment is dominated by restaurant and hotel jobs (2015 average hourly rate: $14.12) and retail jobs ($17.21). Midlevel jobs include manufacturing ($23.90), health care and education ($24.97) and construction ($26.91). Finally, high-paying jobs included professional and business services ($29.59), finance ($31.10) and utilities ($36.02).

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


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: jobs; lowwage; wages

1 posted on 05/21/2015 7:43:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Recovery, recovery? I can see Jim Mora ranting about a recovery just like he did about making the playoffs several years back.
2 posted on 05/21/2015 7:47:31 AM PDT by 2001convSVT (Going Galt as fast as I can.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Nonsense. Every one of the additional jobs (approx. 270,000) cited in last month’s employment data was a part time job.


3 posted on 05/21/2015 7:50:03 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: SeekAndFind
The ‘low-wage recovery’ is a myth

Yeah you bunch of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals living in fly-over country..you don't know how good you've got it..trust him..he is from Washington..knows what's good for us...

4 posted on 05/21/2015 7:53:11 AM PDT by BerniesFriend (Sarah Palin-"Lord knows she's attractive" says bitter Andrea Mitchell and the rest of the MSM)
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To: circlecity

That’s the weaselly part of this essay: he doesn’t distinguish between part time and full time jobs. In fact the words “part time” do not appear in it.


5 posted on 05/21/2015 7:55:36 AM PDT by denydenydeny ("World History is not full of good governments, or of good voters either "--P.J. O'Rourke)
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To: circlecity
The author of this article presents the following table...

SHARE OF JOBS

Low Middle High
2000 24.4 43.9% 31.7%
2007 25.0 43.3 31.6
2015 25.7 42.7 31.7

Source: Economic Policy Institute

The above table shows how jobs were distributed in 2000, 2007 — again, the economy’s pre-financial crisis peak — and in 2015.

He then argues that little has changed in 15 years. There’s been a small and gradual increase in low-paying jobs and a parallel loss of midlevel jobs. Both trends preceded the recession and have continued.

6 posted on 05/21/2015 7:56:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: circlecity

Yep. Another layer of chocolate coating on the turd by the MSM. Average smaverage. How about MEDIAN wages and average hours per week? These figures are inflated. The average retail clerk in my state (Oregon) makes far less than $17.21hr. My daughter is an emergency room RN in Oklahoma. Started 2 years ago and makes $28.00hr. BS!


7 posted on 05/21/2015 7:57:33 AM PDT by Right Brother
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To: 2001convSVT
$29.59 for business services, according to this analyist is a high wage. Assuming a 40-hour work week 50 weeks a year, that's just under $60,000 per year. That's only "high wage" for people who are frugal about housing, transportation, other expenses.

Another question be: How many of those over-$60,000 a year "high wage" jobs are in the public sector, paid for by taxes on everyone else?

8 posted on 05/21/2015 7:59:19 AM PDT by grania
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To: SeekAndFind

The Washington Post must think it is not part of “the media”.


9 posted on 05/21/2015 8:14:20 AM PDT by Lake Living
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To: SeekAndFind
"Finally, high-paying jobs included professional and business services ($29.59,finance ($31.10) and utilities ($36.02)."

When I retired a couple of years ago, I was making about $36.50 an hour, which in Seattle is near the low-end of being able to support a traditional middle-class lifestyle. I would not consider it "high wages", yet the author calls $29.57 "high wages." I would say that the lower end of "high wages" starts somewhere around $40-45/hour, with variations by geographical area.
10 posted on 05/21/2015 8:26:12 AM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: grania
"$29.59 for business services, according to this analyist is a high wage. Assuming a 40-hour work week 50 weeks a year, that's just under $60,000 per year.

Where I live, $29.59 is definitely not "high wages."
11 posted on 05/21/2015 8:28:22 AM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: SeekAndFind

Force these morons to live under their BS lie of $29/hr being a higher wage for at least a year. They’ll never maintain their current lifestyle which I’m sure is more than twice the amount of their interpretation of higher wages.


12 posted on 05/21/2015 8:31:54 AM PDT by RJS1950 (The democrats are the "enemies foreign and domestic" cited in the federal oath)
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To: SeekAndFind
I guess it depends on industry and location. I work in healthcare and my facility has spawned a big layer of upper middle management to deal with patient satisfaction, quality,etc.. as a result of ObamaCare. Masters degrees required for these jobs with starting salaries $100K plus. Yet in the same community, light manufacturing and retail distribution jobs offer $12.00 or less per hour. I guess one needs the raw data to make a definitive statement on wages in this so called recovery.
13 posted on 05/21/2015 10:02:31 AM PDT by buckalfa (I am feeling much better now.)
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