At the end of 2010, the average weekly earnings for American rank-and-file workers sat at roughly the same level as at the end of 1979 in inflation-adjusted terms. (Have a look at the raw Labor Department data here.) A lot of caveats go into absorbing that number. Large numbers of women and immigrants entered the labor force in those years, which has tended to pull down average wages. But a central truth cannot be dismissed: More than a quarter-century has gone past -- a sweep of history that has seen the personal computing revolution, two wars in the Persian Gulf, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, the integration of China into the global economy -- and yet the average American worker has gotten nowhere. This while the costs of health care, education and housing have skyrocketed.blog comments powered by Disqus
Fact Checking Why We're Here
In a HuffPost piece yesterday, Peter Goldman cites some inescapable facts concerning the U.S. economy, leaving little question why people are wallowing in debt or why an economy that depends on consumption for 70% of its activity is stuck in the mud:
