U.S. Workers' Wages Stagnate As Firms Rush to Slash Costs

[babylonsister]

U.S. Workers' Wages Stagnate As Firms Rush to Slash Costs

By Annys Shin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 3, 2009


In December, Timothy Owner, a trombone player with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, called his landlord to tell her he might have trouble paying rent around May. He and the orchestra's 53 other full-time members, many of whom are paid less than $30,000 a year, had agreed to a month-long furlough.

The furlough, which ended yesterday, was rough, Owner said. But he and other musicians acknowledged that the alternative could have been worse. "We're less unhappy if this means the orchestra will survive," he said.

Across the country, workers' earnings are stagnating or, in some cases, declining. For many Americans, the setbacks are all the more troubling because they have lost so much wealth in recent months, with the value of their homes and retirement packages plummeting.

Employers big and small have resorted to slashing hours and once-unthinkable wage cuts. In March, staffing agencies that work for Microsoft agreed to a 10 percent reduction in their bill rate. In April, hotel operators in New York City asked unionized waiters, housekeepers and bellhops to reopen their contract and accept wage cuts. State governments such as Indiana's have frozen pay, while others, including Maryland and California, have furloughed employees.

According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, more than a third of Americans say they or someone in their household has had their hours or pay cut in the past few months. That's a nine-point increase since a similar poll was conducted in February.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/02/AR2009050202207.html?hpid=topnews

[Deja Q]

1. I too would take a pay freeze, but the long-term cure is having cost of living match wages...

How else can India and China prosper? It's not all slave labor; H1Bs are not coming here with guns pointed at their heads. They are prospering. Because corporations are abusing the costs set up in America compared to the costs set up in India and China. Free trade certainly isn't fair trade.

Mind you, I have no family, likely won't have one (want one but even in my early 20s I knew I was the black sheep in any family; I'm nigh near 37 now) and spend time learning more trades. Families are being hurt most.

Still, the "party of family values" did nothing over the last 8 years - we can hope that President Obama, who is quite clearly a family man and easily the best family oriented figure we've had in (decades), can help sort things out. And I agree it will take time. (Like exercise to get rid of blubber, it doesn't go away instantly.)

[HughBeaumont]

2. Stagnant for three decades and counting, to be exact.

Adjusted for inflation, productivity and cost of living:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont/86





1979, of course, is the last year we didn't have Randist, "I got mine, to hell with you" laissez-fail corporate fluffers as presidents, economic advisers and corporate leaders. Corporations then turned ultimately ruthless, followed the leads of the likes of Neutron Jack Welch and Chainsaw Al Dunlap, and instead of being seen as an important part of a company's survival and morale, workers were lowered to the standard of dogshit the CEO accidentally stepped on.

Anything we did no longer became important in their eyes; reduced in seriousness in that anyone, (most importantly) anyWHERE and any WAGE, could do what we did. At the same time, they expected us to toss our very own lives in the crapper for the sacrifice of making THEM great. We worked longer hours, got costly educations (which many of us are STILL paying for and have all but been rendered worthless thanks to fire-a-thon practices and job offshoring), took both husband and wife at the same price for what they used to get either husband OR wife for, and never raised our wages to compensate for the cost of living skyrocketing ever higher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

It's not creature comforts . . . it's necessities that are killing us.

America has no future in a setup like this. Scenarios where there is too much wealth in the hands of too few people have historically proven to be economically disastrous, and no amount of Republican victim blaming or astoundingly flawed conservative economic theory is going to change that. The "free markets" cannot regulate or correct themselves.

[Dappleganger]

3. We can attest to this--through dh's job searching

he's an engineer with 20 years experience and a graduate degree in engineering management in a manufacturing environment, that ALL of the major big and medium-size pharma companies are offering lower pay than what they had in the past. Not just lower pay but lower bonus structures as well. IMO many of them don't have to pay less but they are taking advantage of the situation and trying to cut their bottom line on the backs of those who have made all the right choices in regards to education, training and experience but are now laid off. We have had to prepare ourselves for this lower pay, despite the fact that all of our own prices have gone up to take care of the family and housing prices have not fallen to adequately reflect the lower wages. Yes, some areas there are housing deals--but the trade off is that there are no jobs in those areas.

It sucks for everyone but the fat cats. :(