1) Thanks Doug for posting the data. Will check it out later.
Table V.B1, historical data & projections, at <http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR04/lrIndex.html>. Doug
2) Carol writes:
What is the difference between "real wages" "[real?] wage RATE"?
As you know, "real" means adjusted for inflation (but we should always remember that for a 30 yr comparison this gets a bit imaginary) "Real wages" usually many real TOTAL wages, ie how much per employee. "Real wage RATE" usually means per hour (with imaginary, and quite misleading, assumptions about how many hours white collar workers are providing).
3) Michael Pollack writes:
Are you saying that even hough real wages per hour fell, real wages per year rose because people are working more hours
Yes. (I believe they also make some other smaller adjustments, but that is the gist).
(and specifically, more than 10.8% more hours)?
Well, that particular number might be a bit exaggerated since Doug was providing PEAK to current numbers. Average numbers would be smaller, but you get the flavor.
Even if true, I'm not sure that qualifies as a rise in real wages. By this logic, if I work twice as many hours to earn the same amount of money, my wages have remained constant.
Right. That (alas) is what "real wages" means. And, more to the point, of course that is what Soc Security recipients getting! Most people worked a LOT harder over the last decade or two and, but will be "credited" by Social Security with only a small increased "pay in" to Social Security since it doesn't adjust for the # of hours worked.
You sound surprised about how small is the increase in remuneration per hour. Many people are. First, remember that for the last couple of decades there is a HUGE difference by class. The top 20% have done very well. But 80% have made only small gains. Then remember that in this period (i.e. since 1973 as quoted by Doug) there has been a major change in the number of "workers" per household (in quotes because the women in the household worked before but were not paid and their product was not counted in these statistics). So the statistics show a moderate increase per household; a modest increase per worker; and a puny increase per hour worked.
But certainly if this were true it could explain how annual real wages (and the pensions indexed to them) were going up even as real wages by the standard hourly measure were going down.
Do you have any stats for this?
Hopefully Doug's link answers this for us.
Hope this helps Paul
