For workers, it’s no holiday
Boston Globe
by Robert Kuttner
09/03/07
This Labor Day, America’s working families do not have a great deal to cheer. According to the new Census report on economic trends in 2006, median earnings for fulltime year-round workers last year fell by about 1 percent, even with a booming economy. Only the most affluent one-fifth of US households had net income gains between 2000 and 2006. The rest had declines, despite productivity growth averaging about 3 percent per year. The share of people with health insurance provided by employers declined, as did those with guaranteed pensions. And all of this discouraging news happened before the current financial turbulence. Housing values have now gone into their worse tailspin since the Great Depression. Even if the Federal Reserve manages to contain the effects on the broader economy, America remains on a course where the biggest gains go to a narrow elite, and ordinary people face increasing insecurity...
http://tinyurl.com/yq6gtx
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Labor+Day
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=housing
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Kuttner
by Robert Kuttner
09/03/07
This Labor Day, America’s working families do not have a great deal to cheer. According to the new Census report on economic trends in 2006, median earnings for fulltime year-round workers last year fell by about 1 percent, even with a booming economy. Only the most affluent one-fifth of US households had net income gains between 2000 and 2006. The rest had declines, despite productivity growth averaging about 3 percent per year. The share of people with health insurance provided by employers declined, as did those with guaranteed pensions. And all of this discouraging news happened before the current financial turbulence. Housing values have now gone into their worse tailspin since the Great Depression. Even if the Federal Reserve manages to contain the effects on the broader economy, America remains on a course where the biggest gains go to a narrow elite, and ordinary people face increasing insecurity...
http://tinyurl.com/yq6gtx
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Labor+Day
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=housing
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Kuttner
rudkla - 4. Sep, 14:29
