US unemployment is at a low and people are working but their incomes aren’t rising – PB/TK
Economists are puzzled about why incomes aren’t rising — but workers have a good hunch – By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa / May 20 2017
Economists are often wringing their hands over why, despite a continuous eight-year economic recovery, workers’ wages remain largely stagnant, extending a trend that began some three decades ago.
Yet anyone who has applied for a job in the last couple of years knows that, while the US unemployment rate is historically low at 4.4%, the labor market isn’t exactly bustling.
Companies have become a lot more reticent about making new investments in the wake of the Great Recession and during the weak economic recovery that has followed it. That includes investing in people, and the hiring process has become slower and more onerous.
It also means wage increases have become even harder to come by.
The recession caused lasting damage to the job market which still resonates to this day. Steven Partridge, vice president for workforce development at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), says the crisis created what he calls “degree inflation” in job requirements — a trend correlated with stagnant and sometimes falling incomes as workers lost their jobs and considered themselves lucky to take lower-paying ones
Continue to businessinsider.com article: http://www.businessinsider.com/slow-wage-growth-from-demographics-and-employers-2017-5
