The Federal Reserve figures recently released show that in 2010, the median family had assets (including their house but subtracting their mortgage) of $77,300. The top 10 percent had almost $1.2 million, or more than 15 times as much. Household wealth has been sinking for all categories of Americans. In 2007, the net worth of the median family was $126,400. That’s a drop of almost 40 percent in just three years. (numbers adjusted for inflation.) People are not moving up the economic ladder now. People's wealth is in their homes and they have lost two decades worth of value on their homes. Nor is income keeping up. Today, wages account for the lowest share of both gross domestic product and corporate revenue since World War II ended — and continues to shrink.
For many workers in the United States, the five-day work week, paid overtime and holidays are expected benefits. This wasn't always so, and many workers' benefits today are the achievements of the unions. While the workers are not getting rich, few can argue the unions have raised the standards compared to what they had been years ago. This had an effect on non-union workers as well. Non-union workers in industries that were heavily unionized, their employers had to compete with union employers. This raised wages for everyone. Princeton economist Henry Farber has shown that the wages of a nonunion worker in an industry that is 25 percent unionized are 7.5 percent higher because of that unionization.
After World War II, organized labor represented a third of America's workforce. Today, only 12 percent of the overall workforce belongs to labor unions both public and private. About 37 percent of the public sector workforce belong to unions as opposed to only 7 percent in the private sector. As unions have declined the average wage in some sectors has fallen. In the auto industry, unionized jobs once paid upward of $28 an hour. He says workers in both union and non-union plants are now hired at about $13 to $15 an hour, and in some cases can't earn more than $19 an hour. An International Monetary Fund study released in April shows that the portion of GDP going to wages and benefits has declined from 64 percent in 2001 to 58 percent this year.
America’s cities and towns are in the throes of a deep financial crisis. And we are told, over and over, what is supposedly behind it are the unreasonable demands by grasping state and municipal workers for pay and pensions. State and city workers have not seen their wages (including all benefits) grow any faster than that of private-sector workers. According to the data, the wages of state and local employees grew 0.6% annually from 1990 to 2010 (after adjusting for inflation), which was actually slightly slower than the 0.7% rate for private-sector workers. Both groups saw their inflation-adjusted hourly compensation grow at an identical 0.9% annual rate. Claims that state and local workers make exorbitant wages and compensation almost always fail to consider the occupation or education levels of the workers being compared. Studies which make an apple-to-apple comparison (controlling for education and other worker characteristics) show that state and local workers are not overpaid.
What has driven cities and towns to the brink are not the demands from their workforce but the collapse of national income and the resulting fall in town-tax collections. In other words, the Recession itself, for which Wall Street and the financial sector are to blame. Big Business interests have seized the opportunity to use the crisis to cut back the welfare state and roll back the unions. San Diego and San Jose voted to force city workers to pay more for their pensions. Democratic Mayor Chuck Reed took on the unions and estimates that in the first year the measure would save the city about $25 million a year, but it would eventually save billions in the long run. Little is said about the San Jose millions being paid to Wall St banks. The Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) is the transit operator in Santa Clara County. The VTA is losing $13 million annually on its toxic interest rate swap deals with four banks: Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Through May 2012, those banks have sucked $51 million out of the VTA’s budget, forcing the agency to shift the costs to riders. Unless these four banks agree to renegotiate these deals, the VTA could lose another $224 million on these swaps through 2036 if current interest rates hold (see more here)
Capitalism robs working families to pay the capitalist class.
For many workers in the United States, the five-day work week, paid overtime and holidays are expected benefits. This wasn't always so, and many workers' benefits today are the achievements of the unions. While the workers are not getting rich, few can argue the unions have raised the standards compared to what they had been years ago. This had an effect on non-union workers as well. Non-union workers in industries that were heavily unionized, their employers had to compete with union employers. This raised wages for everyone. Princeton economist Henry Farber has shown that the wages of a nonunion worker in an industry that is 25 percent unionized are 7.5 percent higher because of that unionization.
After World War II, organized labor represented a third of America's workforce. Today, only 12 percent of the overall workforce belongs to labor unions both public and private. About 37 percent of the public sector workforce belong to unions as opposed to only 7 percent in the private sector. As unions have declined the average wage in some sectors has fallen. In the auto industry, unionized jobs once paid upward of $28 an hour. He says workers in both union and non-union plants are now hired at about $13 to $15 an hour, and in some cases can't earn more than $19 an hour. An International Monetary Fund study released in April shows that the portion of GDP going to wages and benefits has declined from 64 percent in 2001 to 58 percent this year.
America’s cities and towns are in the throes of a deep financial crisis. And we are told, over and over, what is supposedly behind it are the unreasonable demands by grasping state and municipal workers for pay and pensions. State and city workers have not seen their wages (including all benefits) grow any faster than that of private-sector workers. According to the data, the wages of state and local employees grew 0.6% annually from 1990 to 2010 (after adjusting for inflation), which was actually slightly slower than the 0.7% rate for private-sector workers. Both groups saw their inflation-adjusted hourly compensation grow at an identical 0.9% annual rate. Claims that state and local workers make exorbitant wages and compensation almost always fail to consider the occupation or education levels of the workers being compared. Studies which make an apple-to-apple comparison (controlling for education and other worker characteristics) show that state and local workers are not overpaid.
What has driven cities and towns to the brink are not the demands from their workforce but the collapse of national income and the resulting fall in town-tax collections. In other words, the Recession itself, for which Wall Street and the financial sector are to blame. Big Business interests have seized the opportunity to use the crisis to cut back the welfare state and roll back the unions. San Diego and San Jose voted to force city workers to pay more for their pensions. Democratic Mayor Chuck Reed took on the unions and estimates that in the first year the measure would save the city about $25 million a year, but it would eventually save billions in the long run. Little is said about the San Jose millions being paid to Wall St banks. The Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) is the transit operator in Santa Clara County. The VTA is losing $13 million annually on its toxic interest rate swap deals with four banks: Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Through May 2012, those banks have sucked $51 million out of the VTA’s budget, forcing the agency to shift the costs to riders. Unless these four banks agree to renegotiate these deals, the VTA could lose another $224 million on these swaps through 2036 if current interest rates hold (see more here)
Capitalism robs working families to pay the capitalist class.
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