Bernie is as immutable as ever. In today’s NY TIMES article he writes,
The median male worker in America today is making $726 less than he did in 1973, while the median female worker is making $1,154 less than she did in 2007.
Because women did not exist back in 1973. They appeared in 2007 with the sole purpose of proving some point about men.
Sorry, I feel like I post about Jill Stein a lot, but this is just amazing.
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It is verbatim what conservatives are saying. I fail to see any differences at all.
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Wow. Jill Stein is really awful (and ignorant!) I didn’t realize just how awful until this article. Thanks for posting adrianaurelien!
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Actually, it is a whole p.o.v., not a Stein aberration — it’s Left reasons not to want to be in EU. They call it Lexit. The most cogent discussion I have seen argued that while Lexit as a theoretical position could be nice, and while anti-immigrant sentiment isn’t the only reason those who voted Leave did so, there is no practical way now to implement a Lexit (i.e., that although it might be possible to formulate a progressive set of reasons for leaving and a progressive methodology for post-EU existence, voting Leave in this referendum could not amount to Lexit in practical terms & couldn’t actually be a progressive act).
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1973 would have been a poor point of comparison for women. There were fewer in the workforce, and access to a lot of white collar jobs was still very limited.
That said, I’m not sure why 2007 was chosen. Probably because it shows the biggest decline.
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“1973 would have been a poor point of comparison for women.”
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That 2007 number seems off to me. Perhaps a misprint? I’m doubtful that wages have declined that rapidly in nine years.
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That 2007 number seems off to me. Perhaps a misprint? I’m doubtful that wages have declined that rapidly in nine years.
Actually, it isn’t.
Here’s the entire sentence which Clarissa left out the end of:
Despite major increases in productivity, the median male worker in America today is making $726 dollars less than he did in 1973, while the median female worker is making $1,154 less than she did in 2007, after adjusting for inflation.
The whole 1973 v. 2007 thing is explained as women’s wages rose in relation to men in the aggregate (the ratio), but real wages for everyone went down.
Otherwise, single earner households wouldn’t have turned into unicorns in the intervening 35+ years.
If inflation is 1% every year and your wages don’t go up at all, every year your real wages go down. If you receive COLAs, you have no idea.
Also, a lot of people that lost jobs found jobs that paid much less. Combine those factors and you have a lot of real wages going down.
Go look at the median wages of steel workers in 1985, convert them to current dollars, and realize with benefits it comes to 95 K in today’s dollars. For being a high school graduate, when you pretty much need a master’s degree AT LEAST to make that much today.
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In the process of my nanny search, I realized how useless the numbers of female earnings are because so many women in care jobs simply don’t declare. Finding a nanny is one thing, but finding one who agrees to declare – oh, Lordy.
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That’s an interesting point. I suspect though the kinds of jobs that are female dominated and filled with lots of people working under the table are not highly paid and would not raise the median if declared. I would suspect those jobs might lower the median, and would lower the average if declared.
IME, jobs that have “flexibility” as a selling point are usually poorly paid even when compared to similar jobs.
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It’s at least twice the minimum wage, so I wouldn’t say it’s that low-paid. Although I have a very poor understanding of what people regard low-paid in this country, so I might be wrong.
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Double the minimum wage would be pretty close to the median wage. Median adult wage (per active worker) is around $30-32k a year last figures I have seen. So would be a push on statistics I think.
Statistics get super complicated here because often they compare household income (median closer to 53-55 k i think), and then different inflation adjustments, and some just wages, other include health and retirement benefits.
In general middle america has taken it in the shorts, especially non college white males. But obviously your point about women and minorities having it at least somewhat better since 1973 certainly means we don’t want that part of 1973 to return. Ultimatetly tho most of the gains have gone to the 1 and 10%. Its a vexxing problem to solve, whether liberal or conservative.
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In general middle america has taken it in the shorts, especially non college white males.
If you are asserting that non college everyone else makes more money, that is decidedly NOT true. A white dude without a college degree makes more on average than anybody else without a college degree.
If you’re asserting that white dudes who have not went to college have seen their real wages drop over time, that is a fair assertion.
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Are you talking about what you’ve offered or the going rate you’ve seen from other people’s ads?
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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