Re: Wages Up by Smallest Amount in Nine Years
- From: "js" <jonathansmith99@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 2 Feb 2006 12:05:51 -0800
Sue wrote:
js wrote:
js wrote:
I challenged your interpretation that the picture was not "rosy" by
providing the detailed data representing what the article author was
using:
Because takehome wages were down.
The author does not discuss take hame pay of hourly production workers.
The author discusses the compensation of the civilian workforce.
You posted about hourly production worker wages - not wages and
benefits (total compensation) odf the civilian workforce. DUH!
"Benefits" are deceptive
Benefits are real compensation, Sue. They have value.
since a third of the workers have no
employer covered health plans,
No, Sue - 53% of workers participate in an employer "paid" health plan.
However, 75% are offered these plans.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs2.nr0.htm
half the workers have no
retirement plans beyond Social Security.
In the private sector, 21% participate in a defined benefit plan and
42% in a defined contribution plan. Some overlap so the numbers aren't
additive.
Current projections are
for half the workers to be without employer covered health plans by
2010.
The benefits game is over.
The data consider the value of the benefits. If employees are not
offered them or do not participate, it is not included in the total
compensation numbers. Since total compensation is the relevant metric,
it is the one that should be used.
Here is why. Two jobs. One pays $11 per hour, has 2-weeks paid
vacation, and contributes $1200 per year to a health plan. Second job,
pays $11.50 per hour, has no vacation and no health plan. Which job
"pay's" more? Job 1 has $2000 in benefits, Job 2 has $1000 more in
cash.
Which comparison would you use if you had to decide which job to take -
the hourly wage or the total comp?
So you have to deal with harder statistics, what workers get
paid, not virtual pay.
Not true, though. Employers have choices regading compensation
packages. From an employers perspective, paying straight cash probably
makes the most sense administratively. To employees, however, paid
vacation and health plans have value. To employers, they have a cost.
You cannot disregard these.
It is not a diversion - your hourlies are.----
hourlies? So I am still lying? Is that how you argue?
Not at all - I simply pointed out that looking exclusively at hourly
wage rates of production and non-supervisor personnel in private
industry is not generalizable to the compensation of the civilian
workforce.
What's even more dishonest - why did you pick 1970 as your base year?
1973 was a peak year not 1970. The period of the highest pay was in
the
early 1970s If you got to the graph. It is not a "base" period, it is
the "best".
How things were and how they should have even got better of the
American
dream applied to the working people.
No - it is a convenient time point. I simply opoint out that if you
have an agenda and you want to use statistics, it isn't too challenging
to manipulate them.
Approaching that peak was a period in which real incomes rose.
The expectation might were that this would continue. It did not.
After the early 1970s the situation progressively deteriorated
and the "recovery" in the late 1990s has not been complete.
I apreciate your justification, but the point wasn't whether you can
rationalize the choice but rather that the results depend on the the
choice you make.
The high point is in 1973 with $9.08. The hourly figure
dropped to a low of about 7.50 in the Reagan-Bush One
period, rose again to a local high of $8.29 in
2002 and has since backed off more
If you wish to know the recent weekly
earning changes http://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.t03.htm
Again, you sliced a segment of the population to make a point - a point
in direct contradiction to the data presented in the original artuicle
you posted and a thread you named.
The hourly income figures represent what is happening to the
working class level. I am not concerned with CEO or upper
management compensations. Golden parachutes are not
generally handed out to the people on the factory floor. Dismissal
slips are.
Which makes your argument political and biased. But I knew that. I
don't do agendas, I do data.
If you factor in all incomes you skew the distribution with those
getting
big incomes, stock options etc. A better number would not be the
average but median hourly income, since this is lower and represents
what is happening to the lowest 50% of the workers.
The distribution of compensation in the US for workers actually is
truncated more so than skewed. Your argument for using median is a
valid one, but not for the reasons you think.
The median household income in the US in 2003 was just short of $53,000
for households where at least one person worked. In the same year, the
mean household income was $59,000. Using CPS data, the mean income of
ALL households was $50K.
Seems the distributions aren't that skewed. Only 5% of the households
had incomes over 150K so the tail is not thatr dramatic. I could run
the statistic if you like and describe skewness and kurtosis in
statistical terms.
However, disregarding the entire distribution because the upper half of
the distribution includes people you find politically distasteful is
another bias. Why do you insist on comprmising the validity of your
argument by purposely manipulating the data in such obvious ways?
In real constant dollars (1982) it dropped from
$277.19 in December of 2004 to $276.16
2005. What confuses the workers is, of course,
is that their pay in uncorrected $ increased
from $534.15 to $ 550.66.
In real terms, compensation for employees is not the $18 in wages, but
the $26.05 of value they actually receive.
Who receives that!
I guess its the average wage earner? Who did you have in mind, Sue?
It is well known that average income data
are highly skewed now,
No, it is not well known. In fact, I challenge you to prove it.
the top 20% of the wage earners are
getting the major portion of the global improvement in earnings.
The dice are loaded.
OK - I'll bite - show me the data. I really am not interested in an
oped, I want the table or tables from a reliable source.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.t01.htm
Here are the data - and it is these data cited by the article that you
use to justify your conclusions and support by slicing a segment of the
statistic to meet your personal and political agenda.
That spin to me is exactly what you said - a lie.
No, it is not a lie and you are doing a kind of distortion which is all
to
common now.
I'm sorry - maybe I should have been clearer. Titling a thread as you
did, posting the article as you did, and then concluding that the
economy sucks because the hourly wage rate of production and
non-supervisory workers in the US has declined since 1970 is hardly
honest.
Those government tables do not lie. If you think they
are a lie you should report it. The period of highest real income
for hourly employees was in the early 1970s, things have either
stagnated ot deteriorated for the working man since then.
The working man is defined as the civilian labor force. Real income is
wages and benefits. These numbers have shown rerasonable increases
overall - matching the GDP growth fairly well - which is EXACTLY what
you would want and expect from a well organized economy.
It will get worse with private employers getting out of the benefits
area.
The downhill direction is being maintained.
The direction isn't downhill, Sue - only your spin makes it seem that
way.
Thanks for playing, Sue. Play again?
I have proven my point, I don't really have to do more.
Yes - I am convinced that you have a political agenda and you will do
anything you can to support it - even if it means distorting the data.
Thanks for playng - we are done.
js
.
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