More economics from the trenches

[John Hall]

According to the US BLS ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/ECI.ECCONST.TXT

Private Industry Workers total compensation [Which is the appropriate
measure, since taxes and health care are supposed to benefit those
workers], in constant dollars, has increased from an index of 93.9 (Mar
1980) to 102.4 (Dec 1995) and 110.4 (Dec 2002).

So in terms of total compensation, people are better off by between
9.09% and 17.63% according to this data.  That is HUGE.  It corresponds
to an increase over a century of 78.6% to 116.7%.  And remember, of
course, what our base is.

Gains for different workers ranged from 28.8% (I cheated, comparing Dec
1981 to Dec 2001 because it was easier to read the tables quickly) for a
broad range of Service-producing industries including transportation,
communication, real estate, retail trade and others.

Education was the worst, up 6.7%.  Manufacturing 13.5%, Goods production
12.2%, Executives 12.8%, Blue Collor 9.8%.  White collar outside of
sales was 24.3%, Health care was 16.6%.

Now, that isn't the increase in affluence an average PERSON has gotten.
We aren't tracking individuals, but all of society.  So this isn't a
measure of what an average 40 year old would receive compared to what he
got when he was 20, it is a measure of what he gets at 40 compared to
what other people got at 40 when he was 20.

> From: fork-admin@xent.com [mailto:fork-admin@xent.com] On Behalf Of
Owen
> Byrne


> United States, home of wealth and prosperity, the average salary
increase
> after inflation from 1980 - 1995 was 4% (I don't have a source, I
heard it
> on the radio). That's not annual salary increase, that's total.