Economists Think That Wages Are Going to Rise This Year. They should think again.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_edgy_optimist/2014/05/economists_think_wages_are_going_to_rise_this_year_they_should_think_again.html
By a significant margin, economists are feeling optimistic about the year ahead. In a recent survey conducted by USA Today, a large majority said that they expect wages to climb this year, after five years during which there has been hardly any growth at all.
That would appear to be very good news. But there are strong reasons to question whether these rosy expectations will come to pass.
irst, the expectations rest on the assumption that wages will rise as the job market continues to tighten. That was the familiar pattern for a considerable portion of the 20th century. Economic activity would pick up; companies would hire to meet the surge in demand; fewer people looking for work meant that companies needed to pay more to attract and keep workers; rising wages meant increased inflation, and so on. Today, although first-quarter growth was almost zero, the sense is that activity is picking up; the unemployment rate has been falling, and if past patterns hold, wages should soon increase.
But what if past patterns don’t hold? Take the move toward onshoring of American manufacturing. There does seem to be a move toward factories reopening in the United States, as labor costs in China go up and wage costs in a less unionized America are lower than they were decades ago, when those jobs began evaporating. Yet those new factories, whose output will boost GDP growth, are only hiring hundreds of people each. Back when those patterns of increased output and rising wages evolved in the mid-20th century, those numbers would have been in the thousands.
And why should companies feel compelled to increase wages at all? The argument that a tighter labor force will lead to higher wages may hold true for skilled jobs, high-tech jobs, and jobs that require specialized abilities in high demand. But for lower-end jobs—at mass retailers and fast-food restaurants, in temporary work— where will the pressure to increase wages come from?
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The ACA, while a step, just isn't anywhere close to the same (and nearly half our states rejected furthering what little help they do give to cover the huge gap in it, including mine). Nor could I agree more about the JW fallacy. In fact, IMO, just killing that alone -could- (although I fear it may fall into, as my dad used to say, "Coulda woulda shoulda"
give our burger flippers and shelf-stockers enough momentum to organize some collectives of our own -- not that anything is directly stopping us (and I use 'us' because my shared household includes one such individual and myself, 'forcibly' retired via disability), but that too many have in the past believed so strongly in that myth as to preclude the idea of charity or long-term collective thinking. And that's the real tragedy. At least in my area, although we scrape by pretty closely, two people on our low incomes can get by and still cover the essentials without hitting negative numbers every month (ie, some months we do, but not so often that we're drowning in debt like so many others). That's better than our coastal counterparts by a long shot! But so few people of my generation have the mindset to allow them to do that for a long period of time, especially once marriage or children (one problem I don't have, and likely never will) enter the mix.
I do notice that fewer of our younger generation seem to have so much of a mindset, and that gives me some hope. It's hard to speak intelligently about the prevailing attitudes of a generation from outside of it, though, and I see (also anecdotally) that the ones who -do- believe in it often appear to believe in it more than anyone I've ever seen. An odd kind of polarization, one that I can't help but feel my generation and the one preceding it gave to them while raising them. But like I said...maybe my view of that is off.
I guess at this point I'm just sort of rambling, and I do apologize for that. Haven't had enough caffeine yet. 
A lot to do, as you say...and what seems like so little time to do it in. It will be an 'interesting' decade. Of course, as I recall, that's the basis of an old curse.
