tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7895164153505105997.post2275571910561281810..comments2024-01-17T00:45:37.075-08:00Comments on Bud Meyers: Don't Expect Better Wages or Enough Jobs SoonBud Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02065020063363023395noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7895164153505105997.post-55775399620847931232014-11-14T08:09:11.620-08:002014-11-14T08:09:11.620-08:00Economic Policy Institute:
"A number of pos...Economic Policy Institute: <br /><br />"A number of postmortems about the [2014] election have focused on the issue of wage stagnation—the fact that wages for the bottom 70 percent of the American workforce have essentially seen no increase at all since 1979. Worse, without the full-employment period of the late 1990s that pushed up wages across the board, wages for this group of workers would have outright fallen over the past three decades ... a serious policy effort to boost American wages would involve bringing a wage focus to every aspect of economic policy. So what are the prospects of policymakers getting serious about wages in the next two years? Not great ... So why my pessimism? Because the most cited issues on which the new Republican-led Congress and the Obama administration might strike a deal are tax reform and trade agreements."<br /><br />http://www.epi.org/blog/what-getting-serious-about-wages-doesnt-look-like-bipartisan-tax-reform-and-trade-deals/<br />Bud Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02065020063363023395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7895164153505105997.post-89730138272678572362014-11-13T05:21:31.535-08:002014-11-13T05:21:31.535-08:00We have an oversupply of labor (and why wages aren...We have an oversupply of labor (and why wages aren't rising)...<br /><br />"One elephant in the room is a set of statistics describing the participation in the labor force of those who are employable --- the so-called Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR), which remains at low levels unseen since the early 1970’s (when two income families were not yet the norm.) The LFPR, together with the ratio of employed individuals to the population of employable people (the Employment-Population Ratio), are flashing bright red warnings about substantial slack in the U.S. labor force. Such slack would seem to indicate that there is little concern to be had about sustainable inflation in wages and, moreover, that the increased wages that are necessary for the vibrant recovery and reflation of the U.S. economy are not likely to manifest themselves any time soon."<br /><br />* Read the entire post here:<br /><br />http://www.economonitor.com/danalperts2cents/2014/11/12/why-the-fed-is-flummoxed-by-the-u-s-labor-market/<br />Bud Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02065020063363023395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7895164153505105997.post-15432595379347381882014-11-13T05:15:09.917-08:002014-11-13T05:15:09.917-08:00Paul Krugman weighs in on that New York Times arti...Paul Krugman weighs in on that New York Times article:<br /><br />"If Republicans are gaining from public frustration here [on stagnant wages], it is ironic. After all, the GOP is systematically opposed to anything that would increase workers’ bargaining power, and bitterly opposed to any suggestion that inequality is an issue. What we need, they say, is growth, which will raise all incomes (even though it hasn’t).<br /><br />http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/on-income-stagnation/?_r=1<br />Bud Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02065020063363023395noreply@blogger.com