[PEN-L:2416] Re: Re: BLS Daily Report

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tom Walker wrote:

>>RELEASED TODAY:  Median weekly earnings of the nation's 96.2 million
>>full-time wage and salary workers were $541 in the fourth quarter of 1998.
>>This was 5.9 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 1.5
>>percent in the CPI-U over the same period. ...
>
>Four and a half percent is quite an astonishing increase in real median
>weekly earnings.

The three-year increase in real weekly earnings for all of 1998 - 7.0% - is
the highest since the BLS started the all private workers series in 1964,
eclipsing 1973's previous record of 6.2%. For manufacturing workers, the
1995-1998 figure was 6.1%, which is lower than the golden age numbers, but
still the highest since the early 1970s. Longer hours contributed a lot to
recent performance, though; real hourly earnings for all private sector
workers were up just 1.9% from 1995 to 1998; in the late 60s/early 70s, the
figures were in the 4-7% range.

Doug