america the land of low pay -- the numbers will surprise you

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/america-land-low-pay-numbers-will-surprise-you

In 2013, the gross domestic product of the United States was 16.77 trillion dollars. That’s roughly $140,000 per each employed person in our country.

That is, if you break this down per person, each of us produced $140,000 in goods.

Yet most people only see a small percentage of this in their wages. The median wage in the United States was $27,851 in 2013 (median wage is a better measure of how the average American is doing because a few extremely wealthy people at the top skew the average). This means 50% of working adults make $27,851 or less each year.

If each of us made half of what we produced the median salary would be $70,000. Now clearly there's other costs involved, still why aren't people paid more?

Why do so many jobs pay so little?

[hobbit709]

1. Because the 1% are the only ones who benefited from the increase.

[Aldo Leopold]

2. It would be interesting to see the second graph for "supervisory" workers

and/or the 1%.

I bet the curves are reversed, i.e., flat productivity and steeply rising compensation.

[Android3.14]

3. Glad to see Alternet giving credit where credit is due

They usually cribbed articles from other news sources, using large quoted excerpts from the original story, and then put one of their reporter's names on the cribbed trash, with a passing attribution to where the majority of the article came from.

While not Alternet originals, it looks like the company has asked permission or paid to republish several of their recent articles.

Good for you, Alternet.

[KG]

4. wait. didn't we all get a big raise from NAFTA in the 90's?

[pampango]

12. It looks to me like wages declined from 1977 to 1995 then rose after NAFTA.

Wages then leveled (at best) under Bush before rising under Obama.

[MisterP]

15. wait, the neolibs admitted that NAFTA was crap--so you know their support for TPP

is because it's a good idea!

[djean111]

5. Hey! You are not supposed to notice that! It is VERY inconvenient for the NAFTA-lovers who are

talking up the TPP! What really CMSU is the astonishment that people are not spending lavishly due to lower gas prices. Get a clue, folks who are surprised by that - there are lots of people like me who used to choose between groceries and gas to get to the grocery store - I am not going out and buying stuff I don't really need just because I have an extra $25 a month.
And $25 is actually way overestimating my savings.

[pampango]

13. Wages declined after 1977. What does that have to do with NAFTA? In fact wages rose after 1995 for

the first time since the mid-1970's.

[djean111]

14. Here is what I am referring to:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/12/now-even-supporters-of-new-trade-deals-are-bashing-nafta/

An admission from trade-deal supporters: NAFTA hurt some workers

The Democratic think tank Third Way has long defended centrist, pro-business policies -- including the North American Free Trade Agreement, which allowed many U.S. companies to ship jobs to Mexico.

Now, in arguing for a new trade pact being negotiated by the Obama administration, Third Way is making what appears to be a surprising concession about NAFTA, the most famous trade deal in American history: It hurt some blue-collar workers, the group says.

But, Third Way's Jim Kessler and Gabe Horwitz argue in a new analysis released Thursday, trade agreements since NAFTA -- ​which look much more like the massive pacts currently being negotiated with countries in Europe and Asia -- have shown much better results.

Kessler and Horwitz say that NAFTA, the Clinton-era agreement which expanded trade with Canada and Mexico, "fell short" in its promises to middle-class American workers. But they argue that more recent agreements, such as those with Panama (2012) and Singapore (2004), have proven much better for workers and the U.S. economy as a whole, improving the United States' balance of trade in goods with 13 of 17 countries.

Of course, I believe the Third Way is only admitting this because it is pushing the even more corporate TPP/TTIP.
Trying to differentiate the agreements, now that folks are paying attention to what actually happened.

[RadiationTherapy]

6. Money grubbers make pigs of us all.

Make sure to shove someone weaker out of the way so you can get some grub before the masters eat it all.

[Dustlawyer]

7. Fox has it right, it's Class a Warfare, they just have it backwards on who is waging the war!

[Major Nikon]

8. In a capitalist economy, unions are really the only insurance that workers have

When productivity increases and wages are exclusively the product of supply and demand, those at the top are always going to skim off the cream as there will always be someone willing to do your job for less.

All the barons have to do is convince the public that feeding too many oats to the horses is the most efficient way to feed the sparrows.

[JayhawkSD]

10. Maybe not the only insurance.

But they are far and away the best insurance.

I have been watching the West Coast dockworkers/ports with considerable interest. To hear the medai, it was a crisis threatening the US economy, and they were telling consumers that dockworkers were the bad guys because it was the dockworkers who were denying consumers access to the goods which they (we) needed to be able to buy.

I had a slightly different slant. As a former IBEW electrician, I was rooting for the dockworkers.

[Major Nikon]

11. True

You can form your own business or insist on an individual contract rather than a collective one. Minimum wage laws and a flimsy social safety net can't even guarantee you won't be eating out of a dumpster.

[freebrew]

9. Because the 1% make the decisions...

about how much to pay, what your 'worker value' is, etc.

These things used to be partially offset by the unions, but the Rs have decided you just aren't worth very much.

There are no rules governing what the 1% think of the 99% of the people.

The 1% think they are rulers.

So did the French, the Russians and many more through history.

They were DEAD wrong and so will be those that think they are above us now.

Just wait until the Teabaggers realize they are in the same boat as the rest of us.
(sarcasm tag?)

[Skittles]

16. these trickle down bastards have stolen our retirement