Calling all working stiffs

Since the Department of Commerce starting keeping track in 1947, wages and salaries as a share of the gross domestic product are at the lowest point. Wages as a slice of GDP were comfortably above 50 percent from the 1950s through the mid-1970s and then the percentage fell until the mid-1990s when it crept back up through 2000. Now, at a record low, take home pay now makes up just 45.3 percent of GDP.

Since 2003, adjusting for inflation, hourly wages have fallen 2 percent. Conversely, corporate profits, thanks to worker productivity, have swelled. The American worker, however, obviously isn’t sharing in the fruits of their labors.

According to economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, the top 10 percent of earners in 2004 enjoy 42.9 percent of all earnings, not including capital gains. The top 1 percent enjoys up 16.2 percent of the total income.

Worse still, the buying power of minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, is less than it was in 1947. Although California has recently raised the minimum wage, Congressional Republicans are loathe to do the same. The argument offered is that a raise in the minimum wage would benefit but a few at the expense of business and the overall economy.

Interesting argument in light of the fact that low wage earners are the bulk of the workforce as mid and upper wage jobs are disappearing at an alarming rate. This is the same Republican Congress that is giving large tax breaks to companies that send jobs overseas forcing middle workers to take lower paying positions or simply be unemployed. The argument against hurting the overall economy rings hollow and it seems that corporations and the top ten percent are what are really being protected at the expense of the American worker while giving corporations windfall tax breaks.

There is something very wrong with the priorities of the Republicans who dominate Congress and the Senate. If there isn’t a change in leadership and direction in DC in the November elections, the service industry will be this country’s only industry.

Anyone who argues that the administration and its party have nothing to do with the economy is seriously out of touch with reality or is in the top ten-percent that gets forty-two percent of the wealth. Economic manipulation is part and parcel of politics and this administration and the Republican Party are actively engaged in the practice.

Note how fuel prices are plunging so close to the upcoming elections and the president just happens to be from an oil family, not to mention he’s very buddy-buddy with the Saudis. When fuel prices were reaching altitudes never seen before the Republicans blamed market influences. No doubt they’ll try to take credit for fuel prices going down.

Lower energy costs also reign in inflation so the Federal Reserve Board, independent from politics, has been sitting on current interest rates. This is all good for business and most consumers – for now. After November if energy costs began their upward spiral, which no doubt they will, rest assured we’ll see the Fed edging the rates up again.

As voters told Senior, “It’s the economy, stupid”. Junior not only has the economy against him but foreign and domestic policy failures as well.

21-50 - out.