Why a booming economy feels flat (C. S. Monitor)

[Up2Late]

USA > Economy
from the August 22, 2005 edition

Why a booming economy feels flat

Personal income is one key area where workers have fallen behind, compared with past periods of strong wage growth.

By Mark Trumbull | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Think back to the last time the American economy was rapidly rolling forward: output growing more than 4 percent a year, millions of new jobs were created, and unemployment on a downward slope.

Yes, the 1990s was a golden economic era. But the description refers to the performance that began last year. Despite continued strong economic growth, this expansion is clouded with enough complications and uncertainties that, for many, it doesn't feel like good times.

The reason? A boom in corporate profits has not yet created a job market that makes workers feel secure, economists say. Hiring hasn't skyrocketed. Worse, wages are stagnant. This paycheck squeeze may prove more worrisome than soaring oil prices and concerns over a housing bubble. Some experts worry that wage stagnation may prove more permanent this time, because of an increasingly global market for labor.

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"It's hard for me to see this as a good economy," says Dean Baker, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "It's doing better than it had been," but given that the nation went for four years without creating any jobs to speak of, "we have a lot of ground to make up."

<http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0822/p01s03-usec.html?s=t5>
(more at link above)

[Ready4Change]

1. It's an amazing rising tide.

Somehow it refuses to lift all boats.