Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 9:43am

Chart Of The Day: Whose Wages Are Stagnating?

I’d been fooling around with Census data a bit over the last week. Here’s an interesting chart using Census Table P-36. Full-Time, Year-Round All Workers by Median Income and Sex: 1955 to 2010

Median income for full-time working men first hit 50,000 (in inflation adjusted 2010 dollars) in 1973, and it has been essentially flat ever since (breaking 50k for the second time in 2010.) However, the median income of full-time working women has gone up 35% since 1973. The percentage of full time workers who are women has also increased gradually throughout that time, from 30% in 1973 to 43% in 2010. (In absolute numbers, obviously both the number of male and female full time workers has increased significantly during the same period.)

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WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Thursday, February 16, AD 2012 1:33pm

Interesting how Mens’ real wages, which in cold hard fact are the historical standard since women have just that recently begun to enjoy improvement in pay across the board, have not changed since Nixon dislodged the dollar from that pesky Gold Standard. Yet, there’s tremendous growth when compared to the stable, productive 1950s. Fiat Money!

I would venture to guess that Womens’ wages will plateau eventually.

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Thursday, February 16, AD 2012 1:35pm

Revision: Tremendous growth UNTIL THAT POINT when compared to the 1950s. Sorry.

Kevin J
Kevin J
Friday, February 17, AD 2012 7:00am

Does the push for women’s equality in the workforce act as a cap on male productivity and wages?

An office of highly productive men must work extra hard to promote women, lest it be sued for discrimination. So why should the men work as hard, if they’ll be less likely to get promoted anyway?

While sometimes it’s just bitterness to claim that less qualified women are promoted over more qualified men, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is indeed the case in many companies.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, February 17, AD 2012 7:40am

Forgive all injuries.

I agree with Kevin.

I’ve been in the big corporate world since before affirmative action.

In the old days, managers’ annual HR performance “ratings” had to contain a statement to the effect that “so-and-so actively supports the EEO program and treats all personnel fairly and equally.”

Now, it’s the opposite. Corporations are required to discriminate (in employment, promotion) to ensure equal outcomes (“disparate treatment”/”effects tests rule” – accomplishments, education, experience, knowledge, skills be damned) for protected classes.

In bank lending, they imposed Equal Credit Opportunity Act, CRA, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, etc., and it’s all, “The bank doesn’t make enough affordable housing loans or loans to protected classes in “red-lined” areas! The government forces the highly-regulated to advance more loans and to hell with repayment capacity or any other credit decision factor.”

Back to employment. HR needs to report its numbers. In promotions, that means minimally qualified protected class members are promoted over more highly accomplished white males. That leads to resource misallocations and inefficiencies, as Kevin indicates.

Kevin J
Kevin J
Saturday, February 18, AD 2012 9:01pm

Another way to look at the wages is to consider them in the light of family breakdown. Married men tend to be the most productive, and with the decline in marriage that will manifest in lower male productivity and wages. Men paying alimony to ex-wives they now dislike or despise may have less incentive to earn.

As for whether women are being promoted or hired in place of equal or more capable men, there are lots of incentives to do so.

Many big companies have special women’s groups for networking purposes that aren’t available to men (and seem to be heavily feminist). Many government contracts have quotas for women-owned business and businesses with X percentage of women in management positions. If women aren’t men’s equals for a given position, then these structures are promoting less effective employees. If women are equal to men for a given position, then these structures give them the upper hand in the competition for jobs.

I’m sure these pressures depend on the industry, too. An editor with a major local newspaper told me of the sinking feeling he gets when his hiring team heads to a diversity job fair knowing that he has to hire someone just on the basis of diversity. I wager feminist groups are more interested in news media, academia, government or law firms than IT or engineering fields.

Kevin J
Kevin J
Sunday, February 19, AD 2012 11:46am

Here’s an example of how feminist policies pressure companies to hire women:

Carrollwood hydrant project delayed by lack of women on crews http://www2.tbo.com/news/carrollwood/2012/jan/20/3/labor-requirement-delays-fire-hydrant-project-ar-349677/

So you have a company that could save $16,000 for a city contract and is racially diverse enough to meet other standards, but doesn’t have enough women skilled laborers.

The contract will likely go to someone with better feminist recruitment policies, costing men their jobs, costing cities more money, and strengthening feminist economic and cultural power (which in the American context relies upon, and promotes, contraception and abortion).

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