> BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2001:
>
> RELEASED TODAY: The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U)
> increased 0.2 percent in March, before seasonal adjustment, to a level of
> 176.2 (1982-84=100), the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. For
> the 12-month period ended in March, the CPI-U increased 2.9 percent. The
> Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W)
> rose 0.1 percent in March, prior to seasonal adjustment. The March level
> of 172.6 was 2.8 percent higher than the index in March 2000.
>
> RELEASED TODAY: Real average weekly earnings increased by 0.7 percent
> from February to March after seasonal adjustment, according to preliminary
> data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This was due to a
> 0.4 percent gain in average hourly earnings and a 0.3 percent rise in
> average weekly hours. The Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and
> Clerical Workers (CPI-W) was unchanged, after seasonal adjustment.
>
> About 54 percent of last year's 2.8 million high school graduates got
> jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says (The Wall Street Journal, in its
> "Work Week" feature, page A1).
>
> Time was when Americans retired, they retired in earnest -- to the golf
> course, to Florida, to consultancies, to volunteer work -- to just about
> anything but their old jobs. Besides, tax laws generally prohibit
> companies from distributing pensions to working employees. But a number
> of large companies, including Avery, Monsanto, PepsiCo and Lockheed Martin
> are now finding ways to work around the legal obstacles and offer phased
> retirement. Phased retirement can take many forms. At universities, it
> is used to clear out elderly tenured professors. But in the private
> sector, it is being promoted as a way to keep valued older workers in a
> tight labor market. Workers in their 50's who would otherwise take
> advantage of early retirement provisions in their pensions are offered the
> chance to work reduced hours -- something surveys show many want to do --
> and supplement their reduced incomes by tapping their pensions. Employers
> and some retirees praise the arrangements, and business groups have been
> lobbying Congress to clarify their use by amending the respective laws
> (The New York Times, April 15, page 1).
>
> In the traditional business cycle, it is blue-collar workers and
> lower-level employees generally who feel the brunt of a sharp slowdown or
> recession, while managerial types often escape unscathed. Until recently,
> that scenario seemed to be unfolding again, as factory workers and
> minorities took a hit. Now, observes a Morgan Stanley economist, there
> are signs that higher-paid white-collar workers are also increasingly at
> risk. For one thing, the huge survey in layoff announcements this year --
> nearly three times last year's pace. More important, almost all of last
> month's unemployment rise seems to reflect rising joblessness among
> white-collar workers. Unless the economy picks up steam soon, the Morgan
> Stanley economist thinks high-paid managers will be next (Business Week,
> April 23, page 32). On page 42 of the same Business Week, Aaron Bernstein
> writes: "Adjusted for inflation, the median pay of 90 million
> nonsupervisory workers -- about two-thirds of the workforce -- outpaced
> inflation by one to two percentage points a year starting in 1997,
> according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But late last year, their
> median wages ground to a virtual halt, climbing by less than a tenth of a
> point. Employers are also shedding temporary workers and scaling back the
> workweek for hourly earners to trim costs. The temporary help industry
> has lost more than 200,000 jobs, after nearly quadrupling in the '90s,
> according to BLS. And in hard-hit manufacturing, the workweek has fallen
> by an hour in the past year. Such cutbacks have slashed $10,000 to
> $20,000 in annual overtime pay for steel and auto workers." ..."inequality
> between the top and the bottom is reversing upward again, even before
> unemployment has begun to climb much," says Economic Policy Institute
> economist Jared Bernstein.
>
> Of all the gains made in the U.S. during the booming 1990s, none perhaps
> was as important to society as those made at the bottom rung of the income
> scale. The once-unemployable found jobs, welfare was successfully
> reformed, and the working poor saw a big rise in their real wages, says an
> editorial in Business Week (April 23, page 130). The current slowdown
> threatens all that. Policymakers should note that even a second-quarter
> bounce-back to a 2.5 percent annual growth rate will not stop the erosion
> at the bottom end. Nothing less than the return of a sustainable rate of
> 3.5 to 4 percent is required. Recent jobless rates for Hispanics and
> African Americans are already up sharply. The editorial calls for enough
> monetary and tax-cut stimulation to get the U.S. back to a 4 percent
> unemployment rate as soon as possible.
>
> DUE OUT TOMORROW: Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers:
> First Quarter 2001
>
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