{"id":618,"date":"2014-02-13T09:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T09:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/02\/on-wage-growth-three-graphs.html"},"modified":"2014-02-13T09:58:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T09:58:00","slug":"on-wage-growth-three-graphs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/02\/on-wage-growth-three-graphs.html","title":{"rendered":"On Wage growth — three graphs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Here, for your Thursday morning contemplation, are three graphs from the bls.gov site. <\/p>\n

The first of these, median weekly earnings, in constant (1982-1984) dollars (that is, adjusted for inflation), for full-time workers, both hourly and salaried. <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Not great \u2014 wages dropped precipitously at the end of the Carter administration, recovered during Reagan\u2019s term, dropped again with the early 90s recession and climbed with the dot-com boom, finally reaching their earlier levels only to drop again with the current recession.<\/p>\n

But look at this (sorry, I\u2019m having trouble getting the graphs to align):<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

A nice, steady progression, with admittedly some leveling off starting in 2003.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s women\u2019s earnings (median full-time, constant dollar) in the same period.<\/p>\n

And, if you haven\u2019t already figured it out, that means that men\u2019s earnings don\u2019t tell the same nice tale, and, in fact, is downright depressing:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

For another view on men\u2019s earnings, here\u2019s a graphic that goes back more years than the BLS data:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

What do you make of this?\u00a0 Does that mean that earnings is a zero-sum game and men have lost because women have gained?\u00a0 Or is it more complex than that?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the question for the day.\u00a0 (And now I have to start my usual workday, so, for the moment, this is just food for thought.)<\/p>\n

Here, to finish off, is the source of the graphs \u2014 I can\u2019t just add a URL because it requires going through a search routine on the bls site:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
choose:<\/span><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
subjects \u2013 earnings by demographics; this gets you to:<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/cps\/earnings.htm#earn<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
then choose:<\/span><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
databases \u2013 most requested series<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
http:\/\/data.bls.gov\/cgi-bin\/surveymost?le<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
choose \u201cconstant dollar\u201d options<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here, for your Thursday morning contemplation, are three graphs from the bls.gov site. The first of these, median weekly earnings, in constant (1982-1984) dollars (that is, adjusted for inflation), for full-time workers, both hourly and salaried. Not great \u2014 wages dropped precipitously at the end of the Carter administration, recovered during Reagan\u2019s term, dropped again […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Wage growth -- three graphs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here, for your Thursday morning contemplation, are three graphs from the bls.gov site. 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