I usually think of this as meaning that since the 70s our economy has created many millions of new jobs rather than increasing the rewards for a smaller number of jobs; that to some extent we faced a choice between these two sorts of growth and it was more jobs that won out. It could also be that the wages of white men were inflated because in any mixed situation, it was almost always a white man who became the supervisor over black or female colleagues, so the possibility of the reverse happening shows up as declining wages for white men.
But whatever the reason, it is true that the wages of white men have gone either nowhere or down. White men really have lost power and status in America over the past 40 years, and that simple fact explains a lot of our politics.
Wages have been stagnant, despite rising cost of living.
ReplyDeleteWomen are indeed working more, and wages for women have been increasing - but they were very low to begin with, and they still aren't yet on par with wages for men in a lot of areas. And these increases in income have been roughly balanced out by the rising cost of living.
Families are today working twice as hard for the same effective wage. Both men and women are now working in order to pay the bills, meaning many more people are employed, but they're still only earning the combined equivalent of what a single worker earned previously, in terms of buying power.
Creating more jobs sounds great on paper, but the devil is in the details. If you double the amount of jobs in the nation by splitting a single person's wages between two people, you get twice the labor for the same price. But that robs the working class of the value of their time and their labor, and only further exacerbates the wealth gap between rich and poor.
But if you halved people's wages, there would be an uproar - no one would tolerate such an act. Yet if cost of living slowly and gradual doubles, and instead of raising individual wages to match, you simply keep wages static and require families to make the difference by having a second person start working, you accomplish the exact same thing as halving wages outright, and without any outcry whatsoever.
"Wages have been stagnant, despite rising cost of living."
ReplyDelete-This is a meaningless statement. Nominal wages have risen. The CPI has risen. Real wages have stayed stagnant.
"And these increases in income have been roughly balanced out by the rising cost of living."
"Families are today working twice as hard for the same effective wage. Both men and women are now working in order to pay the bills, meaning many more people are employed, but they're still only earning the combined equivalent of what a single worker earned previously, in terms of buying power."
-Nope.
"Creating more jobs sounds great on paper, but the devil is in the details. If you double the amount of jobs in the nation by splitting a single person's wages between two people, you get twice the labor for the same price."
-This is a good point. I am opposed to womens' participation in the labor force and desire a return to a more traditional family structure. But womens' real wages have risen strongly over the past few decades, as women take over many formerly male-dominated jobs. Mens' real wages have slightly fallen.
Again, Verloren, real wages have not halved; that is squarely ridiculous. But they have stagnated for White men. This is not good.
This is why America must be Made Great Again. Making the entire population of Mexico U.S. citizens isn't gonna help.
@pithom
ReplyDeleteEvery group that has ever longed for "more traditional" ways of life as you claim to has been disappointed, because the simple fact is you can't turn back the clock on history.
Slave owners wanted to stop the world from abolishing slavery; feudal kings wanted to stop the world from abolishing feudalism; Christians wanted to stop the world from experiencing the rise of Islam; Pagans wanted to stop the world from experiencing the rise of Christianity; the Carthaginians wanted to stop the world from experiencing the rise of Rome; the Ancient Hebrews wanted to stop the world from experiencing the rise of Babylon; et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The world changes, and despite every human effort possible, despite the unquenchable desires and brilliant machinations of the most powerful and capable people in the world, the Traditionalists always lose out against the march of time. The "more traditional" lifestyle you crave isn't coming back, and nothing you or anyone else attempts in trying to force it to can ever succeed.
Your best bet to actually live the kind of lifestyle you profess to desire would be to join a cloistered community of some sort - find a little Amish village somewhere, or become a Franciscan monk maybe. No one's stopping you from choosing to live in whatever traditional way you personally want to, in your own little community of likeminded people. The rest of the world is happy to leave you to your own business, with the expectation that you'll do the same in regards to their business.
"The world changes, and despite every human effort possible, despite the unquenchable desires and brilliant machinations of the most powerful and capable people in the world, the Traditionalists always lose out against the march of time."
ReplyDelete-Thus saith the Bol'shevist in 1920.
And even if what you say is true, that doesn't make it right.
"The "more traditional" lifestyle you crave isn't coming back, and nothing you or anyone else attempts in trying to force it to can ever succeed."
-It's succeeding in states like Texas and Georgia.
"No one's stopping you from choosing to live in whatever traditional way you personally want to, in your own little community of likeminded people."
-Do you support southern secession? Does Obama?