Friday’s job and wage numbers show the Fed is winning, big corporations are doing great, and workers are losing ground.
by Sharon Kyle, LA Progressive
Job growth and wages are slowing. Employers added 223,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department reported Friday — lower than the average in recent months.
Average hourly wages rose by 4.6 percent in December, according to today’s report. That’s a slowdown from 4.8 percent in November.
All this is music to the ears of Fed Chair Jerome Powell because the Fed blames inflation on rising wages. The Fed has been increasing interest rates to slow the economy and thereby reduce the bargaining power of workers to get wage gains.
At his press conference on December 14 announcing the Fed’s latest interest rate hike, Powell warned that “[t]he labor market remains extremely tight, with the unemployment rate near a 50-year low, job vacancies still very high, and wage growth elevated.”
But aren’t higher wages a good thing?
The typical American worker’s wage has been stuck in the mud for four decades.
Most of the gains from a more productive economy have been going to the top — to executives and investors. The richest 10 percent of Americans now own more than 90 percent of the value of shares of stock owned by Americans.
Recent Posts
Nobel-Winning Economist Calls For Climate Tax On Billionaires
April 29, 2024
Take Action Now And she called for the money to be sent directly to the world’s most climate-vulnerable people. by Arielle Samuelson, Heated……
Backroom Dealing Is Driving Right-Wing Abortion Bans
April 29, 2024
Take Action Now As state supreme courts consolidate power and corporate money, shoddy oversight allows justices to hide their financial conflicts of…
Students Beat The Bold Marauder — Ceasefire Summer, Education Summer, Freedom Summer, Or Liberation Summer?
April 29, 2024
Take Action Now With summer approaching, what will happen to the current encampments that seek an end to ties to genocide? By Michael Albert The…
Debt Dollars – The Unused Leverage
April 29, 2024
Take Action Now U.S. Treasuries are debt securities issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury (USDT), the national treasury and finance…