The Privileged Perspective
Speaking Power to Truth
Speaking Power to Truth
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Pie Are Squared
I like pie, don't you? Not the cherry or the chocolate cream variety--too many carbs--but The Proverbial Pie, of which we Billioneers are getting an increasingly hearty piece. Thanks to G-Wonderful's embrace of foreign outsourcing, the plebian workforce is scrapping for more meager portions of the national dessert than ever. The 1 million new jobs created since Bush ascended to office are not only dwarfed by the 2.6 million lost in that time, but they pay less and offer fewer benefits! Three in five of the newly minted 'sucker positions' pay below the U.S. median hourly rate of $13.53, and the mean weekly wage ("mean" as in "average", but you can take it both ways) of $525.84 is at the nation's lowest level since October 2001.
According to a report issued by Toronto-based CIBC World Markets, industries that gained jobs during the last three years (hospitality, education, food service, temporary employment agencies) pay, on average, 30 percent less than the industries that lost jobs. Five years prior, that trend was reversed.
This is good news for anyone benefiting from the country's widening income gap, as evidenced not only by a recent Census Bureau report , but by the fact that sales for Porsche Cars North America are up 17% for the year even as more and more Americans are going to work in a paper hat.
So as the bottom fifth-ers nibble at their crumbs, we can stick our fingers right in the delicious confection of wealth--- so long as we savor the best part, the Upper Crust.
