The scapegoating stereotype of deadbeat poor people masks the growing reality of dead-end jobs and disposable workers. Living standards are falling for younger generations despite the fact that many households have two wage earners, have fewer children, and are better educated than their parents.
Forty percent of all children in families headed by someone younger than 30 were officially living in poverty in 1990, including one out of four children in White young families and one out of five children in young married-couple families. If not for the increased work hours of women, married-couple families would be significantly poorer.
Real wages for average workers are plummeting--despite rising productivity. Workers' average inflation-adjusted weekly earnings crashed 16 percent between 1973 and 1993--falling below 1967 levels. A college degree is increasingly necessary, but not necessarily sufficient to earn a decent income. Since 1990, college graduates "have been losing ground at the same rate as workers with less education," reports the Economic Policy Institute's The State of Working America 1994-95. The 1993 real wages of college-educated workers were 7.5 percent below their 1973 level.
In 1967, a full-time, year-round worker paid minimum wage earned above the official poverty line for a family of three. Today, these workers (mostly women) are way below the poverty line for a family of two.
For corporate executives, meanwhile, compensation has skyrocketed. The average CEO of a major corporation "earned" as much as 41 factory workers in 1960, and 149 factory workers in 1993.
Rising productivity in the 1990s, says Fortune, demonstrates that the "productivity payoff" from information technology and corporate reengineering has arrived. Profits are booming, but there has been no wage payoff for workers. Fortune 500 profits shot up 54 percent in 1994--on a sales gain of just 8 percent. How did profits rise so much faster than sales? Business Week explained in an article on third quarter 1994 profits titled "Hot Damn! They Did It Again": "By slashing payrolls, investing in technology, or simply overhauling assembly lines, companies are making more efficient use of fewer workers. . .The huge pool of labor has a lot to do with the prevailing wage restraint. . .The unemployment statistics don't count the roughly 4 million part-time workers who are eager for full-time jobs. In addition, the explosive increase in the number of temporary workers gives few employees much leverage in negotiating pay raises."
Union jobs provide better wages and benefits than their nonunion counterparts, but they are fast disappearing. Full-time workers who were union members earned median weekly wages of $592 in 1994 compared to $432 for nonunion workers--a wage differential of $8,320 over 52 weeks.
"Few American managers have ever accepted the right of unions to exist," says Business Week. "Over the past dozen years, in fact, US industry has conducted one of the most successful antiunion wars ever, illegally firing thousands of workers for exercising their rights to organize." The unionized share of the workforce was just 15.5 percent in 1994.
In the words of the Labor Research Association's American Labor Yearbook 1993: "With the possible exception of Hong Kong and South Korea, the US provides workers with less legal protection than any other industrialized country. . .[It] has the smallest proportion of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements." The Yearbook continues: "The US has become a cheap labor haven for global capital looking for low wage and benefit costs, high productivity, and a nonunion environment. . .For example, German firms such as BMW, Adidas, Siemens, and Mercedes are moving into the Carolinas, where huge tax breaks are available and the unionization rate is below 5 percent."
Jobs and wages are being downsized in the "leaner, meaner" world of global corporate restructuring. Corporations are aggressively automating and shifting operations among cities, states, and nations in a continual search for lower taxes, greater public subsidies, and cheaper labor. "Cheap labor" does not mean low skill. Computer engineering and software programming are increasingly being "outsourced" to Third World and East European countries. In Business Week's words, "What makes Third World brainpower so attractive is price. . . .In India or China, you can get top-level [computer engineering] talent, probably with a Ph.D, for less than $10,000."
Full-time jobs are becoming scarcer, as corporations shape a cheaper, more disposable workforce of temporary workers, part-timers, and other "contingent workers." More workers are going back to the future of sweatshops and day labor.
Workers are increasingly expected to migrate from job to job, at low and variable wage rates, without paid vacation, much less a pension. How can they care for themselves and their families, maintain a home, pay for college, save for retirement, plan a future? How do we build strong communities? We can't build them in economic quicksand.
Forty percent of all children in families headed by someone younger than 30 were officially living in poverty in 1990, including one out of four children in White young families and one out of five children in young married-couple families. If not for the increased work hours of women, married-couple families would be significantly poorer.
Real wages for average workers are plummeting--despite rising productivity. Workers' average inflation-adjusted weekly earnings crashed 16 percent between 1973 and 1993--falling below 1967 levels. A college degree is increasingly necessary, but not necessarily sufficient to earn a decent income. Since 1990, college graduates "have been losing ground at the same rate as workers with less education," reports the Economic Policy Institute's The State of Working America 1994-95. The 1993 real wages of college-educated workers were 7.5 percent below their 1973 level.
In 1967, a full-time, year-round worker paid minimum wage earned above the official poverty line for a family of three. Today, these workers (mostly women) are way below the poverty line for a family of two.
For corporate executives, meanwhile, compensation has skyrocketed. The average CEO of a major corporation "earned" as much as 41 factory workers in 1960, and 149 factory workers in 1993.
Rising productivity in the 1990s, says Fortune, demonstrates that the "productivity payoff" from information technology and corporate reengineering has arrived. Profits are booming, but there has been no wage payoff for workers. Fortune 500 profits shot up 54 percent in 1994--on a sales gain of just 8 percent. How did profits rise so much faster than sales? Business Week explained in an article on third quarter 1994 profits titled "Hot Damn! They Did It Again": "By slashing payrolls, investing in technology, or simply overhauling assembly lines, companies are making more efficient use of fewer workers. . .The huge pool of labor has a lot to do with the prevailing wage restraint. . .The unemployment statistics don't count the roughly 4 million part-time workers who are eager for full-time jobs. In addition, the explosive increase in the number of temporary workers gives few employees much leverage in negotiating pay raises."
Union jobs provide better wages and benefits than their nonunion counterparts, but they are fast disappearing. Full-time workers who were union members earned median weekly wages of $592 in 1994 compared to $432 for nonunion workers--a wage differential of $8,320 over 52 weeks.
"Few American managers have ever accepted the right of unions to exist," says Business Week. "Over the past dozen years, in fact, US industry has conducted one of the most successful antiunion wars ever, illegally firing thousands of workers for exercising their rights to organize." The unionized share of the workforce was just 15.5 percent in 1994.
In the words of the Labor Research Association's American Labor Yearbook 1993: "With the possible exception of Hong Kong and South Korea, the US provides workers with less legal protection than any other industrialized country. . .[It] has the smallest proportion of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements." The Yearbook continues: "The US has become a cheap labor haven for global capital looking for low wage and benefit costs, high productivity, and a nonunion environment. . .For example, German firms such as BMW, Adidas, Siemens, and Mercedes are moving into the Carolinas, where huge tax breaks are available and the unionization rate is below 5 percent."
Jobs and wages are being downsized in the "leaner, meaner" world of global corporate restructuring. Corporations are aggressively automating and shifting operations among cities, states, and nations in a continual search for lower taxes, greater public subsidies, and cheaper labor. "Cheap labor" does not mean low skill. Computer engineering and software programming are increasingly being "outsourced" to Third World and East European countries. In Business Week's words, "What makes Third World brainpower so attractive is price. . . .In India or China, you can get top-level [computer engineering] talent, probably with a Ph.D, for less than $10,000."
Full-time jobs are becoming scarcer, as corporations shape a cheaper, more disposable workforce of temporary workers, part-timers, and other "contingent workers." More workers are going back to the future of sweatshops and day labor.
Workers are increasingly expected to migrate from job to job, at low and variable wage rates, without paid vacation, much less a pension. How can they care for themselves and their families, maintain a home, pay for college, save for retirement, plan a future? How do we build strong communities? We can't build them in economic quicksand.
