re: 36th anniversary of Ronald Reagan firing all the air traffic controllers

OCTOBER 9, 2014
For most workers, real wages have barely budged for decades

Following the better-than-expected September jobs report, several economic analyses have pointed out the continuing lack of meaningful wage growth, even as tens of thousands of people head back to work. Economic theory, after all, predicts that as labor markets tighten, employers will offer higher wages to entice workers their way.

But a look at five decades’ worth of government wage data suggests that the better question might be, why should now be any different? For most U.S. workers, real wages — that is, after inflation is taken into account — have been flat or even falling for decades, regardless of whether the economy has been adding or subtracting jobs.

Cash money isn’t the only way workers are compensated, of course — health insurance, retirement-account contributions, education and transit subsidies and other benefits all can be part of the package. But wages and salaries are the biggest (about 70%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and most visible component of employee compensation.

According to the BLS, the average hourly wage for non-management private-sector workers last month was $20.67, unchanged from August and 2.3% above the average wage a year earlier. That’s not much, especially when compared with the pre-Great Recession years of 2006 and 2007, when the average hourly wage often increased by around 4% year-over-year. (During the high-inflation years of the 1970s and early 1980s, average wages commonly jumped 8%, 9% or even more year-over-year.)

But after adjusting for inflation, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power as it did in 1979, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms the average wage peaked more than 40 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 has the same purchasing power as $22.41 would today."

LINK

Reagan might be the -worst- president in U.S. History, not one of the best.

Now I get that many, many of the people who post here have little or no personal recollection of Reagan. But the record is very clear. He started this nation on the road to decline.