| The real weekly earnings of 100 million workers are less today than in 1980 when Ronald Reagan took office - a virtual quarter century pay freeze. According to the US commerce Department, the median (midpoint) households (where male workers earn about $41,000 a year and female workers $31,000 a year) have experienced a decline of 5.9 percent in income the past five years alone ... Except for a few years in the late 1990's, college educated workers' real wages have stagnated, growing less than a half of one percent a year from 1979 through 2005 and actually declined in 2004-2005.
For the first time since the US government began to collect the data in 1947, wages and salaries no longer constitute more than half of the total national income. In contrast, corporate profits are at their highest levels since World War II, having risen double digits every quarter in the last three and half years alone, and 21.3 percent in the most recent year, 2005, according to the Dow-Jones "Market Watch." From Table 2 (annual incomes of the wealthiest .01%) 1978.......$3,240,098 Z Magazine Feb. 2007 |