Wages Continue to Fall

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Whether you use the PayScale Index, look into the BLS report, or anything and everything, the reality is that American wages are, even with strikingly low unemployment, continuing to fall.

Worker pay in the second quarter dropped nearly one percent below its first-quarter level, according to the PayScale Index, one measure of worker pay. When accounting for inflation, the drop is even steeper. Year-over-year, rising prices have eaten up still-modest pay gains for many workers, with the result that real wages fell 1.4 percent from the prior year, according to PayScale. The drop was broad, with 80 percent of industries and two-thirds of metro areas affected.

One potential source? Stock buybacks.

"Now, economic confidence has been good, we're in a strong economy, GDP is growing, but the question has been, where's the paycheck?" said Katie Bardaro, vice president of data analytics at PayScale.

The answer is, largely, in the companies' coffers. Businesses are spending nearly $700 billion on repurchasing their own stock so far this year, according to research from TrimTabs. Corporations set a record in Q2, announcing $433 billion worth of buybacks — nearly doubling the previous record, which was set in Q1.

Another potential major issue? Mergers and nearly monopolistic power.

"It's becoming fairly clear the U.S. economy has a monopsony problem," Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, an auditing firm, tells Axios. "It suggests that the Congress at one point will have to look at using its anti-trust powers against large firms."

Obviously, the current administration is only going to make this worse, and the Give Rich People Money Tax Act from late last year isn't going to provide relief to actual humans. However, I think polarization and tribalism has gotten bad enough, and racism is generally strong enough, that Trump and Republicans won't be punished by declining wages unless the economy as a whole goes into freefall.

Discuss any ramifications, or non-ramifications, policy proposals, or calls for guillotines.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Relevant:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-you-do-up-to-now.634434/page-3#post-15175655


It should be pretty obvious to anyone who has entered the lower end of the employment market in the last two decades that wages have been stagnant, at best. The upper end (and here I mean upper middle class, not the upper class) has likely also seen depressed wage growth as well though not as strikingly bad as towards the lower end of the scale.

We're long overdue for a national minimum wage hike and it needs to be at least double what is is now ($7.25/hr). We also need the government to stop actively restructuring the economy to push all the wage gains to the top.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

My pay has been stuck at $12 an hour for several years now and I am told no raise is coming. One of my roommates, who is also degree-less like me, spent almost a year job hunting until he found... $12 an hour.

My company is small too so no health insurance, 2 days paid sick, 5 days paid vacation, no overtime, no holiday bonuses, etc., etc. I wasn't super aggro but I went job hunting earlier this year and a few places interviewed me for a similar job only to ask me at the end if I'd be willing to do a different, part time, lower paying job. lol.

 

[Hygro]

Dishwashers in SF area are making around $15 hour. Dishwashers here in TX are making the $7.25. Cost of stuff here is a mix, but I'd say overall excluding housing things here cost about 75%.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Produce is generally cheaper in CA since everything that's not corn is grown here.

 

[Hygro]

$2 tall cans at my local bar tho

 

[hobbsyoyo]

$2 tall cans at my local bar tho

Glad you don't live in a dry county.

 

[Hygro]

Come visit.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The last time I was in Texas I was pulled over for Cali plates and interrogated as a drug smuggler. The time before that the roads flooded from an inch of rain and destroyed my car. No thanks. :-/

I like you but I hate Texas more. Pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

 

[rah]

Driving through Texas in my younger days (across the panhandle) we stopped for gas and the gas station attendant, noticing our long hair, warned us that it would probably be a good idea to be across the border before the sun set.
When I've gone back on business though, I've been treated very well. (I'm sure it was all due to shorter hair, and all the money )

 

[timtofly]

I have no benefits, and no future earnigs. I get a flat amount per job. For 5 years it was the same. Now they want to pay me 12% less per job. I agree that companies tend to be paying less than they used to, if they can get away with it. Being in the service industry, not sure if they are negotiating for less, or cost is going up, and no one is willing to put more money out into the service market. I cannot complain about minimum wage, because it is hard to factor what that would entail in service, and getting paid hourly for a set time doing nothing is hard to quantify.

 

[Farm Boy]

Dishwashers in SF area are making around $15 hour. Dishwashers here in TX are making the $7.25. Cost of stuff here is a mix, but I'd say overall excluding housing things here cost about 75%.

Do you have a rough on the ratio of housing expense?

 

[Bamspeedy]

My sister lived in the Bay area. Can't go anywhere without going over toll bridges, spending $25/day in tolls.

 

[FriendlyFire]

My pay has been stuck at $12 an hour for several years now and I am told no raise is coming. One of my roommates, who is also degree-less like me, spent almost a year job hunting until he found... $12 an hour. My company is small too so no health insurance, 2 days paid sick, 5 days paid vacation, no overtime, no holiday bonuses, etc., etc. I wasn't super aggro but I went job hunting earlier this year and a few places interviewed me for a similar job only to ask me at the end if I'd be willing to do a different, part time, lower paying job. lol.

I hear that there is going to be a lot of Coal, Steel and agriculture jobs available now ?
The minimal wage in the us is $7.25 so at least you are doing alright

 

[Hygro]

Do you have a rough on the ratio of housing expense?

Yeah it’s completely crazy different. Super roughly a third out here, maybe sometimes less and often more. Perhaps a lot more.

My sister lived in the Bay area. Can't go anywhere without going over toll bridges, spending $25/day in tolls.

Wait how? As an uber driver bridging it over to San Francisco I’d usually only go through one ~$5 toll a day.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Yeah it’s completely crazy different. Super roughly a third out here, maybe sometimes less and often more. Perhaps a lot more.

Wait how? As an uber driver bridging it over to San Francisco I’d usually only go through one ~$5 toll a day.

She was in Benicia, this was 5-10 years ago, don't know if things have changed since then, and more likely it was my dad exaggerating, and it was only $25/day when they were driving him around when he was visiting. He made it sound like when they are out doing other stuff than just driving to SF for work they are paying tolls on bridges.

Checking an interactive toll map I see she could go from Benicia to SF through one toll.
There are other toll bridges in the area.
https://tollguru.com/toll-info/california/california-toll-bridges

 

[warpus]

At my job we get annual cost of living wage increases plus a bit more than that. My wage has grown by 60% in the last 10 years.

I'm staying in this job forever *knocks on wood*, or at least until this place goes bankrupt

 

[Commodore]

The last time I was in Texas I was pulled over for Cali plates and interrogated as a drug smuggler.

r/thathappened

Whether you use the PayScale Index, look into the BLS report, or anything and everything, the reality is that American wages are, even with strikingly low unemployment, continuing to fall.

It really depends on the industry. Trade workers are seeing their wages go through the roof right now due to the shortage of trade workers.

 

[uppi]

Whether you use the PayScale Index, look into the BLS report, or anything and everything, the reality is that American wages are, even with strikingly low unemployment, continuing to fall.

When I look at that PayScale Index, the data doesn't really support "continuing to fall". It looks like wages in the US were more or less stagnant since 2013 and maybe even slightly rising in the last years, before they took a downturn last quarter. The development is bad, alright, but "continuing to fall" is an exaggeration. At least for now, since Trump's current economic policies are likely to result in further decline wages.

This isn't anything new, though. Wages in the US have more or less stagnated for almost 50 years now.

 

[civvver]

My pay has been stuck at $12 an hour for several years now and I am told no raise is coming. One of my roommates, who is also degree-less like me, spent almost a year job hunting until he found... $12 an hour.

My company is small too so no health insurance, 2 days paid sick, 5 days paid vacation, no overtime, no holiday bonuses, etc., etc. I wasn't super aggro but I went job hunting earlier this year and a few places interviewed me for a similar job only to ask me at the end if I'd be willing to do a different, part time, lower paying job. lol.

What do you do?

Almost every skilled trade job (electricians, general contractors) or service professional jobs (real estate agents, hr placement people) and tech jobs (engineers and computer programmers) are seeing wages go up quite a bit. Even if the tradesmen jobs aren't seeing huge base wage increases there is so much work they can basically work unlimited overtime. Even fast food places around here are posting on their front signage hiring up to $10, $11, even $12 an hour, which is way above Michigan's minimum wage. In the past they wouldn't have to cus lots of people were looking but there's a shortage now. I even know guys who sell tvs at a warehouse place on commission that are bringing in six figures right now cus everyone is buying electronics.

The part I would complain about is rising expenses. Utilities are going up and are going to spike in the next few years as we shift away from coal. Gas is stable for now but not exactly cheap at $3 a gallon. Health care and education always go way up. Food too is stable for now, aside from beef. There's a major cattle shortage in the us, but chicken is cheap, seasonal vegetables are cheap. But it'll probably go up. So that's my issue, I'll get a $300 a month raise but insurance goes up ~$50 a month, utilities go up 10, cable bill goes up 10, taxes take a third and it's like $100 a month at the end of it all.

I've more than doubled my salary in the past decade, but that's cus I started ~15 years ago, you get big raises around your 5 year mark as you move from entry level to mid/senior level. Still, I negotiated an 8% last year, and 5% the year before that cus competition is hot and new hires at my level would cost a lot.