The Wall Street Journal Wednesday march 7th, 2012, had an article on young adults and the fall in their wages. The first point they admit to is that the youth who would tend to make the lowest wage "are not working." So this pushes up the average wage. But of course those who cannot get a job should be included in the averaging out of income, of wages. The Wall Street Journal can make this admission in its pages because it assumes that now working class person reads its paper.
For males with only high-school degrees, aged 19 to 25, the average wage is down down 10% from a decade ago to $11.68. For women in the same category, the average has declined 9.2% to $9.92. This is an underestimate given the lowest paid are not working as I said and also that prices have gone up.
On top of that look at the discrepancy between women's and men's wages. There is now equal pay in this country. The bosses squirm out of the equal pay laws by all sorts of schemes. This is one of the things that lies behind their squealing about too much regulation. They do not want to be forced to obey the laws of equal pay for equal work and other laws that hurt their profits.
Unemployment has edged down in the last few months to 8.3% from 10% in October 2009. But this is a false figure. As I said there are those who no matter how hard they tried could not get a job have dropped out of the workforce and are not counted. Then there are the hundreds of thousands in prison. And in spite of this there are four unemployed people for every job opening.
We do not see much talk of this in the Republican primaries or the press conferences and campaigning of the White House. The millions unemployed and in prison, the unequal pay for women, the falling pay for the low paid worker, the millions who have given up looking for work, these are of no concern to US capitalism and its two Parties, the Democrats and the Republicans except in how they might affect their electoral fortunes.
On unemployment it would be a farce if it was not so savagely tragic. At regular intervals the Federal Reserve which controls interest rates gives a report to Congress. The Fed in this report lays out how it is keeping unemployment high enough so that the working class does not get get too confident and begin to organize and mobilize into unions and for better wages and benefits and conditions. So the Fed reports how it is manipulating interest rates so as to keep unemployment up around where it is now, about 8.00%. Millions unemployed are no accident. This is policy dictated by the corporations in order to ensure low wages and defend profits. No matter how hard workers try the system works to keep millions unemployed. When I see young people hanging around the corners, or trying to stay alive by illegal means, i refer to them as Greenspan's boys, or Bernanke's boys. These heads of the Federal reserve on behalf of their bosses the corporations keep unemployment high and wages low. The system is rigged on behalf of the corporations profits. .
Sean.
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