Blacknbengal
Well-Known Member
Why hard work doesn't pay
The average worker gets a raise every year but has less money to spend. Why? Inflation and health insurance costs gobble up the raise -- and more.
I'd like to say a few words about the futility of work.
I'm serious.
Take a look around. Today, we're all 24/7, strutting with BlackBerrys and Bluetooths, miles from the long-lost desk and office, not to mention home. At the risk of being rude, I'm wondering if all this frenzied effort pays off.
We know it does for some.
If it didn't, Starbucks and Whole Foods would not exist. There wouldn't be enough people who can afford $3 for a cup of coffee or $2.69 a pound for free-range organic chicken.
But the operative word here is "some." It's time for Joseph Vineyard, the trendy guy who eats free-range chicken, to meet Joe Six-Pack.
If you look at the averages, the statistics give a simple message: Hard work does not equate to economic progress. It hasn't for decades. We may need hard work to keep body and soul together -- not to mention pay the Visa bill -- but average-worker paychecks clearly show that inflation continues to trump wage gains for most American workers.
Losing ground to retirees
This is not a recent problem. Twenty years ago I wrote a column titled "The coming war between generations." It showed that the average worker had lost ground to inflation from 1970 to 1987. The same worker was also losing ground to retirees because the average retiree Social Security benefit was also rising faster than workers' wages.
Since workers pay the bills for Social Security recipients, that's not a healthy situation.
The situation got worse over the next nine years. Workers' wages grew slower than inflation in all but one of the nine years from 1988 through 1996, sometimes by a lot. In 1990, for instance, workers' wages rose 3.3%, but the rate of inflation was 5.4%.
Rest of Story
The average worker gets a raise every year but has less money to spend. Why? Inflation and health insurance costs gobble up the raise -- and more.
I'd like to say a few words about the futility of work.
I'm serious.
Take a look around. Today, we're all 24/7, strutting with BlackBerrys and Bluetooths, miles from the long-lost desk and office, not to mention home. At the risk of being rude, I'm wondering if all this frenzied effort pays off.
We know it does for some.
If it didn't, Starbucks and Whole Foods would not exist. There wouldn't be enough people who can afford $3 for a cup of coffee or $2.69 a pound for free-range organic chicken.
But the operative word here is "some." It's time for Joseph Vineyard, the trendy guy who eats free-range chicken, to meet Joe Six-Pack.
If you look at the averages, the statistics give a simple message: Hard work does not equate to economic progress. It hasn't for decades. We may need hard work to keep body and soul together -- not to mention pay the Visa bill -- but average-worker paychecks clearly show that inflation continues to trump wage gains for most American workers.
Losing ground to retirees
This is not a recent problem. Twenty years ago I wrote a column titled "The coming war between generations." It showed that the average worker had lost ground to inflation from 1970 to 1987. The same worker was also losing ground to retirees because the average retiree Social Security benefit was also rising faster than workers' wages.
Since workers pay the bills for Social Security recipients, that's not a healthy situation.
The situation got worse over the next nine years. Workers' wages grew slower than inflation in all but one of the nine years from 1988 through 1996, sometimes by a lot. In 1990, for instance, workers' wages rose 3.3%, but the rate of inflation was 5.4%.
Rest of Story
