Lawrence Mishel at the Economic Policy Institute writes
Low-Wage Workers Have Far More Education than They Did in 1968, Yet They Make Far Less:
The minimum wage is 23 percent less than its peak inflation-adjusted value in 1968. This is despite productivity (how much output can be produced in an average hour of work in the economy) more than doubling in that time period. The low-wage workforce has surely contributed to this rise in economy-wide productivity, since as a group they have far more education now than they did then. For the workforce overall, 37 percent in 1968 had not completed high school (or received a GED), which was true for only 9 percent in 2012 (the latest year with comparable data). We can drill down to examine low-wage workers, which we are defining for this analysis as those earning in the bottom fifth of the wage distribution.
The figure below shows that low-wage workers have far more education now than they did back in 1968. In 1968, 48 percent of low-wage workers had a high school degree, compared to 79 percent in 2012. Correspondingly, many more low-wage workers have attended at least some college or have a college degree, which the graph identifies as ‘college experience.’ While only 16.8 percent of low-wage workers in 1968 had gone to some college or had a college degree, that group had grown to nearly half (45.7 percent) by 2012. The bottom line is that minimum wage in 2013 is far less now than it was in 1968 despite the economy’s productivity more than doubling, and low-wage workers attaining far more education.
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2006— Extend Debate on Alito:
It seems clear to me that the significance of Alito's views on executive power, access to the courts, civil liberties, the right to privacy, the federal Commerce power, and a myriad of other issues, is only now coming into proper focus. More time is needed for the Senate to properly carry out its Constitutional function of advice and consent.
An appointment to the Supreme Court is for a lifetime. Samuel Alito is 55 years old and, like Justice O'Connor, is likely to sit on the Court for a quarter century if confirmed.
Given the stakes, an additional period of consideration and debate seems appropriate. The length of this additional period need not necessarily be long nor the debate protracted. It seems to me that with a fairly brief period of consideration, the members of the Senate can chart a course for appropriate action regarding Judge Alito.
Thus, I urge the Senate, and in particular the Senators of the Democratic Caucus, to consider moving for extended debate to further consider the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.
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Tweet of the Day:
I just hope she can control her libido long enough to do it. MT @LEBassett: GOP picks a woman to deliver its State of the Union response
— @jesseberney
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show, Chris Christie's still in the news, and not going away,
Greg Dworkin told us. VA's new AG won't defend the state's same-sex marriage ban. The "three Rs" of the ACA. More on the explosive "human incubator" story. Shifting gears entirely, the town where the Superb Owl
TM is actually being played gets none of the NFL love & big buck$. An unintentionally revealing almost-sorta-semi-defense of Bob McDonnell. A former coal miner says they've been dumping this stuff in the WV water forever.
Hunter's take on Dick Black's apparently uncontrollable libido has a happy ending (no pun intended): he's dropping out of the VA-10 race.
High Impact Posts. Top Comments.