American men earning less today than they did in mid seventies

[Ksec]

According to that recent study that came out a few days ago. This is the elephant in the corner for this coming election. We need to push the populism angle. This fact should be a wake up call to what the corporate world is doing to the US.

[mike_c]

1. tell me about it....

eom

[Ksec]

3. OK

The income disparity between CEOs and the workers has risen to vulgar levels.

[liberal N proud]

2. I was discussing that very fact today with a colleague

I told him what my dad made when he was forced to take an early retirement in 1982.
It is $20K more than I am making today. That is real dollars not inflated.

[Ksec]

4. That is just mind boggling

We earn less than they did 30 years ago??? That ditty just blew my mind when I heard it.

[havocmom]

5. Yet, more productive. CEOs are grateful for their lavish compensation...

and all you get is a lousy tee shirt

My question for Dick Cheney, Ken Melhmen and the rest of the neocon shills:
If things are so great, why all the spam for 'male enhancement'?

[hootinholler]

10. No we don't get the shirt

We get to give them our shirt.

-Hoot

[calico1]

6. It's all the fault of the unions!

:sarcasm:

[Bluzmann57]

7. Not only the Unions

But them uppity women as well. Needless to say :sarcasm:

[buddhamama]

9. i get the sarcasm

but your post does a raise an interesting question. if on average women make less than men, what does this report mean for the average females' wage?

[rucky]

12. When you earned 60% less in the Seventies...

there's not that much room to decrease - even over a 30-year span.

I'll double check my stat, but that's what i learned in college.

[buddhamama]

13. i believe your memory is correct

on 60% less. i disagree though, that there's not much room for decrease, and that's what scares me.

and, even the slightest decrease hurts because the cost of living keeps rising.

[The2ndWheel]

11. Not only the women

It's everyone. Not only everyone in this country, but billions around the world. Not only everyone in this country, as well as billions around the world, but automation diminishes the need for human hands.

You may say it sarcastically, but it's true. There's only so much of the pie to go around, and with more people having a chance at the pie, everyone gets a little less. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. NOT SAYING IT'S A BAD THING. As we capitalize the entire globe, we'll just create a global class system. As we do that, and billions of people around the world use more resources, the west will get even less. Again, not a bad thing. It won't be sustainable, nothing we do will be. But with the way humans think about growth as a whole, it's not a bad thing.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. I'm guessing this is "median wage for men", for those who want figures

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/p53ar.html

(perhaps the recent study has updated this beyond 2003).

Recent notable points, eg change of president (in 2003 dollars):
2003: 32,175 Bush 2: -1.0% per annum
2000: 33,118 Clinton: +1.9% pa (almost up to the all-time peak)
1992: 28,381 Bush 1: -2.1% pa (ends at lowest level since 1967)
1988: 30,909 Reagan: +0.5% pa
1980: 29,795 Carter: -2.8% pa
1976: 33,382 Ford: -0.7% pa
1974: 33,881 Nixon: +2.9% pa (ends at all-time high)
1968: 28,612 Johnson: +3.0% pa
1963: 24,692 Kennedy: +2.9% pa
1960: 22,632 Eisenhower: +2.3% pa
1952: 18,806

However, note that it says "Between 1974 and 1976, wage and salary income restricted to civilian workers only. " - and there was indeed a 10% increase from 1973 to 1974, and 12% decrease from 1976 to 1977, which does indicate those years' figures are a bit screwed up. So if we said those 3 years are 11% too high (and there's a similar table for income, rather than wage earners, which indicates those years weren't really extraordinary, so this seems a reasonable assumption), we'd get:

1980: 29,795 Carter: -0.0% pa
1976: 30,074 Ford: -0.7% pa
1974: 30,523 Nixon: +1.1% pa

That would also mean that the median male wage did get to its highest ever level under Clinton, rather than Nixon's last year. It also means the "men earning less than in the mid seventies" claim is only true because of the distortion of only counting 'civilian' workers from 1974 to 1976; but you can see the significant drops were from 1978-1983, from 1988-1992, and from 2000-2003 (the last year of this data).