JWs with good jobs need to thank themselves for not quitting their job because the trend is things are going to get worse as wages drop and inflation eventually moves upward. The Housing Market shows this mess happening right before our very eyes, think about the rental markets, their really tight because people don't have money to buy houses and they don't have the down-payment. Many have fear their investment won't grow like they did prior to the 2008 meltdown years, their lack of conviction is driving rental prices higher. You can read various reports showing there is growth in New Home Sales and I can show you House Companies taking a beating too! You've seen Countries in the News with great financial burdens, Greece is usually page one of any financial newspaper along with other Countries too.
We all have had time to digest Stephen Lett's video presentation of Burger-Dishwasher Brother's six month off working to locate jobs that respected his Meeting Attendance. California has a high pay-scale than most States, the South don't pay squat(Texas, Louis, Missi, Arkan, Florida, South Carl, ect...). Putting this information done by UC Berk's research helps everyone see how even with college wages are stagnate for hard working folks trying to get ahead in life.
A friend sent me a blog that breaks down each point of this recent Berkeley study and how it's affecting those without skills or the ability to have economic upward mobility, it's not happening to a large segment of our population my friends! Attorney and Economic writer Young pointed out in his blog how all this impacts each person trying to make a living, with rentals going up quickly because people can't afford to buy a house and have very little cash for emergencies people are getting crammed with no place to go. Below I put what Attorney Mr Young felt were things to really think about, here's a portion their study.
By Thomas Levy, | April 30, 2015
BERKELEY —Over the past 35 years, California’s high-wage workers have seen steady increases in their paychecks. But low-wage workers, 4.8 million strong and about one-third of the state’s workforce, earned less in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2014 than they did in 1979, according to a new analysis from UC Berkeley.
Between 1979 and 2013, the productivity of California workers increased by 89 percent, but median hourly compensation (wages plus benefits), adjusted for inflation, increased only 3 percent.
Berkeley researchers analyzing U.S. Census Bureau data at the campus’s Center for Labor Research and Education found that low-wage workers, defined as those earning hourly wages of $13.63 or less, have seen steady declines in their inflation-adjusted buying power. This low-wage workforce, nearly three-quarters nonwhite and concentrated in two industries — retail trade, and restaurants and other food services — has also become older and more highly educated.
“We found that low-wage workers in California are older and more educated than they were 30 years ago, and yet they’ve seen stagnant and even declining wages,” said Annette Bernhardt, a visiting UC Berkeley professor of sociology and a senior researcher at the center. “The story of growing inequality is not just about the top 1 percent, it is also about the millions of low-wage workers and their families who struggle with economic insecurity every day.”
In 2013, the median income of low-wage workers’ families was $29,100, compared to $63,000 for all California families, a gap that has widened since 2000. From 2007 to 2011, families of low-wage workers received $14.3 billion in annual support from public-assistance programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid and food stamps.Bernhardt and the study’s other authors, Ian Perry and Lindsay Cattell, found that the top occupations of California’s low-wage workers are retail sales workers; cooks and food preparation workers; material-moving workers; and personal care and childcare workers. About half are in Southern California.
The researchers
What does this mean in short, a legal friend wrote what he felt were the most important 'key takeaways" and here's how he put them:
-real wages for the bottom 50% (those earning less than $13.63 per hour in 2014) have declined since 1979 when adjusted for inflation
-33% of California workers earn less than $13.63 an hour (4.7 million workers)
-surprisingly, of those low wage workers 45% have some college or more education
-40% of the low wage workers are foreign born
-adjusted for inflation, low wage workers have seen their family income decline by 12% since 2000
-almost 60% of low wage workers live in families under 200% of Federal Poverty level
-median earnings for low wage workers is $20,400
-low wage workers are twice as likely to have involuntary part time work
-only 54% of low wage workers have full time, full year jobs
-low wage workers often struggle due to unpaid sick leave, wage theft, and unpredictable “on call” schedules
-specific employment sectors have a high proportion of low wage workers (documented in various charts)
-many of the jobs for which future employment growth is predicted are low-wage jobs
-low wage workers score high on various indices of economic insecurity (i.e. % of children on lunch programs, proportion of households paying more than 30% of their income in rent, proportion of workers with a family member enrolled in Medi-Cal etc)
-low wage workers rely on a mix of public assistance programs
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2015/04/30/low-wage-workers/
