While prices of goods continue to rise, American worker's wages remain stagnant.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If you look at the US economy over the last 15-20 years wages have been stagnating or even declining.
In addition to joblessness, of course, by the working of supply and demand, when you have a larger number of people unemployed, wages do not rise at the normal level, so that we had last year a drop in real wages.
I remain deeply concerned about falling wages and the lack of good jobs for Americans. Too many of our citizens are either stuck in place or falling behind, and too often their needs are forgotten.
American workers won't be able to compete fairly for jobs until companies have to pay higher wages in countries like China and India.
Median wages of production workers, who comprise 80 percent of the workforce, haven't risen in 30 years, adjusted for inflation.
The rise or fall of wages is common to all states of society, whether it be the stationary, the advancing, or the retrograde state.
Americans don't believe that we have a surplus of jobs. They believe that we have a surplus of job seekers, and they are competing for these jobs.
A study of the history of wages back through the years indicates clearly that when the cost-of-living rises appreciably wages have shortly been adjusted upward also.
American workers have faced serious difficulties in the labor market since the first oil shock in 1973. Since that time, the pace of productivity advance has slowed for reasons which are still not understood, lowering the rate at which living standards have advanced.
Today, there are more Americans working than ever before in the history of our Nation, and the average wage of those workers is higher than it has ever been in the history of our Nation.