Posted on 09/06/2021 6:21:50 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The federal minimum wage in the U.S. has remained glued at $7.25 an hour for the last 12 years, the longest stretch without a boost since it was first adopted in 1938. Yet there's another revealing figure that underscores how the minimum wage — created by Congress after the Great Depression as a way to ensure that Americans were fairly paid for their labor — has failed to keep up with the times.
Even as workers have been more industrious — helping drive corporate profits, the stock market and CEO compensation to record heights — their pay has flatlined, or even declined when factoring in inflation. If the minimum wage had kept pace with gains in the economy's productivity over the last 50 years, it would be nearly $26 an hour today, or more than $50,000 a year in annual income, one economist notes.
"That may sound pretty crazy, but that's roughly what the minimum wage would be today if it had kept pace with productivity growth since its value peaked in 1968," wrote Dean Baker, senior economist at the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research, in a recent blog post.
Baker's analysis comes at an uneasy time for millions of workers across the U.S., even as they celebrate Labor Day. The COVID-19 Delta variant means many white-collar workers won't return to the office until 2022, while many lower wage workers continue to cope with the risk of getting infected, not to mention confrontations with anti-mask or anti-vaccine customers.
Inequality also widened during the pandemic, with the wealth of the richest Americans surging as stocks soared, while those at the bottom were more likely to get laid off than white-collar workers and also more likely to work in jobs where they faced a great chance of catching COVID-19.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Productivity comes primarily through capital investment - not labor.
I think Covid has provided an historic reset as people were laid off or lost their jobs and are now shopping around for a new one and not returning to their old one. I think there were a really lot of poeple in bad jobs, low pay, bad management and just not willing or able to look for new work or risk quiting. Now, they are free, they won’t go back to those bad jobs. Companies will have to shape up and also pay more. Market prices will require them to in order to hire workers.
$26/hr = $54k/year. For entry level workers?!
That worked very good in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, etc.
Bunk. Their so-called productivity improvement is largely the result of improvements in the tools that the capitalists give them. There has been little improvement in their own skills, education, work ethic. Their lack of English skills has been a drag on everyone’s productivity.
Productivity gains are largely driven by technology, not workers producing more widgets using the same technology. Also, the type of labor has changed over time. It’s gone from hand labor to services and technology labor. If you say in 1970 plant x produced $100 per labor hour and in 2021 it produces $500 per worker hour, that could mean the labor intensive tasks have been outsourced and/or the laborers are doing less physically intensive yet more valuable work. Adjust everything back to the tools and methods of 1970 and actual output by each laborer has not changed much.
Figures lie and liars figure.
My dad used to say; “if we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs”
If you are a high-productivity worker, chances are you are not making just minimum wage.
Gator, you are usually more rational, has labor day got you down?
Did you just get booted for some one in a special group?
BTW, the first statement you made is absolutely wrong.
Hard work still pays off, as I have two grandsons in their 20s, both work both hard and smart and both are very successful {despite being born racissss}.
“Outside of government what a person is paid (at least on the lower end) is based on how much value they bring to the employer.”
You are correct. When I cut sugarcane as a kid I was paid minimum wage. As a pharmacist my pay was determined by the value of my skills.
Yes, though a lot of the women entering the workforce led to more jobs to substitute for what they had been doing at home.
1. You’re paying for an increment of the labor cost of building the backhoe.
2. You’re replacing part of the labor cost of the 12 diggers with fuel and maintenance costs for the backhoe.
Productivity enhanced by things invented by other people. If I’m a secretary, should I make more money because they take away my manual typewriter and give me a computer with Microsoft word?
My parents survived on one salary.....Dad’s.
However-—
NO NEW CAR EVERY 3 YEARS
NO CELL PHONES
NO CABLE TV
NO CLOTHES SHOPPING SPREES AT SCHOOL START
NO VACATIONS TO ANYWHERE
Went to a one room rural school & am VERY glad I did.
All 4 of us kids were self-employed. All my brothers are retired. I still have ONE accounting client—whom I have had for 52 years.
Wages would have risen dramatically over that same time period, except for the flood of illegal immigrants driving wages down. Thank the Chamber of Commerce and their supporters, the RINOs (that’s most Repubilcans) and the DemocRats.
To quote one of the wisest people to ever hold public office anywhere, Marion Marechal LePen, “Those who said there is no problem now say there is no solution.”
Since the Utility(Electric) is almost entirely white male, non whites and chicks get undeserved promotions. It’s also a monopoly, so good luck with the “getting another job” as the Laissez-faire around here state. I still make good money, and will always have a job. Many aren’t as intelligent as I am, and will get passed over for work. My concern is for generations below me, not for me.
Some places hard work is still rewarded. In others, white males make up for the lack of output by “others”.
We are at the most productive time in our history. Productivity is a turbo charger for creative destruction, though, in the past has been great. Unfortunately that allows for various groups to be left behind via education, immigration or outsourcing via global wage arbritage. All of what you mentioned is easily managed, in fact wanted by large corps to hinder competition.
All nonsense. The government does not have the right to set a minimum, or maximum hourly rate of pay.
Why does the author assume that productivity for the entire economy equals the productivity of all minimum wage workers?
Perhaps wealth is justifiably flowing to a smaller group of workers who create the most wealth - because of their vision, because of their financial risk taking, and because of their skill and determination to execute a business plan?
In any event, we would have been compelled to automate most minimum wage jobs out of existence if we had not legally imported 30 million low skill foreign workers since 1986!
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