“Last year was yet another year of poor wage growth for American workers. With few exceptions, real (inflation-adjusted) hourly wages fell or stagnated for workers across the wage spectrum between 2013 and 2014—even for those with a bachelor’s or advanced degree.”
There are numerous government inspired reasons for middle class wage stagnation. One is the exportation of jobs via international income and political power redistribution scams falsely marketed as free trade agreements. The other big pillar of income redistribution from the 99 to the 1 percent is immigration, which is a primary method of regulating wages downward. There are smaller pillars, as well, such as deregulation, privatization scams, etc….
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Notice in the graph above that the people in the 95 percentile, or what is known as the top five percent, increased their income 2.2 percent last year. 95 percent of all income growth since 2009 has gone to the 1 percent. That means people in the top 5 percent (minus the top 1 percent) have taken the other 5 percent of income growth since 2009.
The 95 percent did not gain any income. Instead those folks lost income last year, and for most years since 1981, when Ronald Reagan ushered in the dark clouds of morning in America. So why did these folks lose money?
Their income was redistributed to the 1 percent via so-called free trade treaties as jobs are shipped overseas. These income redistribution agreements pave the legal route for US corporations to ship American jobs overseas. These agreements also pave the way for US corporations to create jobs overseas that would otherwise be created in the United States. According to the Federal Reserve, 28 million US jobs were exported between 1990 and 2010, and several million more have been exported since then.
The difference between the old higher US wages and the new lower foreign wages goes right into the pockets of the super rich via higher corporate profits, rising dividends and share prices. Those who lose those jobs might receive unemployment insurance for a while. These falsely marketed free trade agreements account for most of the inequality one experiences in the US today.
Currently, the 1 percent steal about 37 percent of all income generated in the US, compared with 8 percent thirty-four years ago. Now the president and his Wall Street bag men, like Wall Street Senator’s Mitch McConnell, Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden, want to steal more of our jobs via the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), and redistribute more of our income to the 1 percent.
The TPP is the largest income and political power redistribution scam in the history of the world, but it is being falsely marketed as a free trade agreement. It has almost nothing to do with trade. It’s about redistributing income from the 99 to the 1 percent via shipping jobs overseas, deregulation of Wall Street so the next financial crisis can’t be stopped, raising the prices of goods and services, eliminating your state and local voting rights on health, safety and labeling issues, and on and on and on.
That’s why it’s important to call your congressional representatives and let them know that you oppose the TPP, and the process known as Fast Track Authority. Fast Track would limit debate in congress, not allow any changes to the TPP, calls for a simple up and down vote, and eliminates the use of the filibuster in the senate on the TPP.
According to EPI, “Comparing 2014 with 2007 (the last period of reasonable labor market health before the Great Recession), hourly wages for the vast majority of American workers have been flat or falling. And ever since 1979, the vast majority of American workers have seen their hourly wages stagnate or decline. This is despite real GDP growth of 149 percent and net productivity growth of 64 percent over this period. In short, the potential has existed for ample, broad-based wage growth over the last three-and-a-half decades, but these economic gains have largely bypassed the vast majority.
The poor performance of American workers’ wages in recent decades—particularly their failure to grow at anywhere near the pace of overall productivity—is the country’s central economic challenge. Raising wages is the key to addressing middle-class income stagnation, rising income inequality, and lagging economic mobility, and is essential to moving families out of poverty. EPI’s Raising America’s Pay initiative and the initiative’s overview paper (Bivens et al. 2014) explain in detail why raising wages is essential to improving Americans’ living standards.”
Click on the link below for the full story.
2014 Continues a 35-Year Trend of Broad-Based Wage Stagnation | Economic Policy Institute.
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