-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 20, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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REPORT ON WORKERS: LIVING STANDARDS:
CAPITALIST FLOOD OF PROFITS DOESN'T LIFT ALL BOATS
By Gary Wilson
Living standards for the working class have sharply
declined over the last decade, a new study reports.
The rising impoverishment of workers across the United
States contrasts sharply with gaudy celebrations of soaring
profits by the big bankers and corporate bosses.
One of the most pervasive myths told by the big-business-
controlled media is that workers' living standards have
gradually improved over the years.
While there have been gains for some, the stark fact is
that for much of the working class the living standards
have been declining.
While Marxists have pointed to this trend of capitalism--
one of this economic system's irrationalities that can be
fixed only by replacing it with socialism--it was also the
featured subject of a June 29 Wall Street Journal article.
The Wall Street Journal is neither Marxist nor anti-
capitalist, but here is how its report opens:
"The long economic boom has pushed unemployment to its
lowest level in decades, but more jobs don't necessarily
mean higher living standards.
"A new report shows that an American holding a full-time
job in the late 1990s was still as likely to fall below the
official poverty line as a similar worker in the 1980s, and
more likely to do so than a full-time worker in the 1970s."
In other words, the standard of living for most workers
today is below that of the 1970s. The report the Wall
Street Journal refers to is from the Conference Board,
which describes itself as a business membership and
research organization.
"By this measure," the Journal reports, "the 1990s economy
looks much worse than the 1970s."
According to an expert cited by the Wall Street Journal,
the average wage for a full-time worker without a college
education is now 8 percent less than it was in 1972.
The Conference Board report also has more statistics that
confirm that poverty is increasing and is sharply higher
than it was during the early 1990s recession.
The "new" jobs available today generally pay less and the
lowest paying jobs now make up 48 percent of the total
employment. The minimum wage has fallen sharply since 1969,
when it was $7 per hour in today's dollars compared with
the current level of $5.15, the Journal reports.
The same week the Conference Board made its report,
Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies
released a report titled "The State of the Nation's
Housing: 2000."
According to this study, low-income households cannot
afford the rent on a two-bedroom apartment in any state
anywhere in the United States.
"The red-hot economy has done little to relieve the
housing problems of low-income households. Renters in the
bottom quarter of the income distribution saw their real
incomes actually decline between 1996 and 1998, while real
rents increased by 2.3 percent," the Harvard study says.
Everyone knows that the great capitalist crisis of the
1930s created havoc with the workers' standard of living.
This happens with every significant capitalist depression.
But how many know that today's "red-hot economy" is also
devastating workers' living standards? Too many believe
that their growing poverty and difficulties are their own
problem and not that of others. Perhaps they are convinced
that few others are getting poorer by the giddy reports of
Wall Street's boom shown almost nightly on the TV.
It was only through united, organized struggles that U.S.
workers in the 1930s were able to make gains. That's what
built the strongest union movement this country has ever
seen. It will take that same kind of organization and
struggle to turn around the economic devastation that
workers are enduring today.
- END -
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