The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week that wages for production and nonsupervisory workers decreased by 0.1 percent from May 2017 to May 2018 when inflation is factored in.
The compensation for all workers together, including supervisors, rose an underwhelming 0.1 percent from April 2018 to May 2018.
When Republicans in Congress passed the tax break bill in December, they insisted it meant American workers would be getting raises totaling $4,000 to $9,000, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers assured workers.
Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and former chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, estimates that the real hourly pay of middle-class workers has risen 0.4 percent over the past 18 months of Republican control of Congress and the White House.At that rate, Bernstein figures, it will take 28 years for a worker to get that promised $4,000 pay bump.
In fact, their real wages declined because of higher inflation. At the same time, the amount workers had to pay in interest on loans for cars and credit cards increased. And, to top it off, Republicans threatened to make workers pay for the tax break with cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. So now, workers across America are wondering, “Where’s that raise?” It’s nowhere to be found. Some workers got one-time bonuses and an even smaller number received raises. But not many. The group Americans for Tax Fairness estimates it’s 4.3 percent of all U.S. workers. Those who earn less than $25,000 a year, that is those in the lowest fifth of income brackets, will get a tax cut this year totaling $60. That’s just about a dollar a week. For those in the middle-income quintile earning between $49,000 and $86,000 a year, the average tax cut is $900. That’s $17 a week—the cost of a large pizza and a Coke. By contrast, the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those with incomes above $733,000 a year, will get a tax cut averaging $51,000. That’s $980 a week. So every week this year, the nation’s richest will benefit $80 more than the entire amount that the middle-income worker will get in a year.
Most of the tax-gift went to stock buybacks, which enrich corporate executives and wealthy stockholders because they have the effect of raising stock values. Corporations set an all-time record for buybacks in the first quarter of this year. They bought $178 billion of their own shares, up by more than 42 percent from the first quarter in 2017. Companies buy back their shares when they believe they have nothing better to do with their money than to return capital to shareholders. So despite promises from the GOP and the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, corporations believed further enriching their own executives and shareholders was a much better way to use the money than increasing workers’ wages—wages that have been stagnant for decades.
In 1981, S&P 500 companies spent about 2 percent of profits on buybacks. Last year, the S&P 500 companies spent 50 percent of profits on buybacks and 41 percent on dividends to stockholders. That left a pittance—9 percent. Corporations socked away some or all of that in overseas tax havens. Their workers, whose labor produced that profit, got virtually nothing.
The Federal Reserve increased the cost of borrowing this week for the second time this year and promised two more hikes before year’s end. Workers will have to pay more for cars and homes and credit card debt.
The tax cut will add $1 trillion to the national debt. Even before passing the tax cut legislation, Republican leaders like Speaker of the House Paul Ryan began saying that workers would have to pay those costs in the form of cuts to cherished safety net programs—that is, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They already tried to slash funding for food stamps, the program that feeds the poor.
https://www.alternet.org/economy/wheres-4000-raise-gop-promised-workers
The compensation for all workers together, including supervisors, rose an underwhelming 0.1 percent from April 2018 to May 2018.
When Republicans in Congress passed the tax break bill in December, they insisted it meant American workers would be getting raises totaling $4,000 to $9,000, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers assured workers.
Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and former chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, estimates that the real hourly pay of middle-class workers has risen 0.4 percent over the past 18 months of Republican control of Congress and the White House.At that rate, Bernstein figures, it will take 28 years for a worker to get that promised $4,000 pay bump.
In fact, their real wages declined because of higher inflation. At the same time, the amount workers had to pay in interest on loans for cars and credit cards increased. And, to top it off, Republicans threatened to make workers pay for the tax break with cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. So now, workers across America are wondering, “Where’s that raise?” It’s nowhere to be found. Some workers got one-time bonuses and an even smaller number received raises. But not many. The group Americans for Tax Fairness estimates it’s 4.3 percent of all U.S. workers. Those who earn less than $25,000 a year, that is those in the lowest fifth of income brackets, will get a tax cut this year totaling $60. That’s just about a dollar a week. For those in the middle-income quintile earning between $49,000 and $86,000 a year, the average tax cut is $900. That’s $17 a week—the cost of a large pizza and a Coke. By contrast, the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those with incomes above $733,000 a year, will get a tax cut averaging $51,000. That’s $980 a week. So every week this year, the nation’s richest will benefit $80 more than the entire amount that the middle-income worker will get in a year.
Most of the tax-gift went to stock buybacks, which enrich corporate executives and wealthy stockholders because they have the effect of raising stock values. Corporations set an all-time record for buybacks in the first quarter of this year. They bought $178 billion of their own shares, up by more than 42 percent from the first quarter in 2017. Companies buy back their shares when they believe they have nothing better to do with their money than to return capital to shareholders. So despite promises from the GOP and the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, corporations believed further enriching their own executives and shareholders was a much better way to use the money than increasing workers’ wages—wages that have been stagnant for decades.
In 1981, S&P 500 companies spent about 2 percent of profits on buybacks. Last year, the S&P 500 companies spent 50 percent of profits on buybacks and 41 percent on dividends to stockholders. That left a pittance—9 percent. Corporations socked away some or all of that in overseas tax havens. Their workers, whose labor produced that profit, got virtually nothing.
The Federal Reserve increased the cost of borrowing this week for the second time this year and promised two more hikes before year’s end. Workers will have to pay more for cars and homes and credit card debt.
The tax cut will add $1 trillion to the national debt. Even before passing the tax cut legislation, Republican leaders like Speaker of the House Paul Ryan began saying that workers would have to pay those costs in the form of cuts to cherished safety net programs—that is, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They already tried to slash funding for food stamps, the program that feeds the poor.
https://www.alternet.org/economy/wheres-4000-raise-gop-promised-workers
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