Word: wages
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...various pressures on pay: in the first three months of 2003, median weekly earnings adjusted for inflation fell 1.5%, according to the U.S. Labor Department. That's the biggest drop since 1991, according to Jared Bernstein, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a research group based in Washington. Wage erosion partly explains why the Federal Reserve Board openly frets about the threat of deflation, a downward spiral in prices that can cripple an economy by making debt repayment more difficult and encouraging consumers to wait for even lower prices. Adding fuel to the deflation debate, the cost of goods...
...there is an unsettling permanence to the falling-wage trend, as companies hold the line on compensation so they can compete in an increasingly global economy in which low costs are key to survival. The ugly truth, which you won't hear on the campaign trail, is that even as economic growth picks up--as it surely will--there isn't a lot Washington can do to encourage employers to hand out more raises. Cost pressures will be so intense during the next expansion, business experts say, that companies are likely to stick to their guns. They will outsource more...
...according to the Journal of Economic Issues. Nowhere is this disparity starker than in the audacious pension guarantees and bonuses proposed for top executives at struggling AMR, parent of American Airlines. The carrier recently asked the unions representing its machinists, flight attendants and pilots for $9 billion in wage givebacks and other concessions over five years to keep the jets flying. Captain Mike Leone, a veteran pilot, took a 23% pay cut and has canceled plans to buy a new house. "We're just glad to have a job," says Leone...
...entire economy, it is cause for concern. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently signaled that he was prepared to cut short-term interest rates for the 13th time since January 2001 to guard against a corrosive bout of deflation, like the one Japan has endured for nearly a decade. Wage pressures and deflation "obviously go together," says Laurence Meyer, an economist and a former member of the Fed's board of governors. "When there is slackness in the economy, it puts downward pressure on wages that then passes through to the price of goods and services...
...master craftsmen who would be willing to strike out on their own if the economic situation made it possible. Our poor business figures have to do with the economic situation alone, not with questions that the handicrafts have to answer. What we need is a radical reduction of additional wage costs via reform of the pension and healthcare systems." Philipp may not get what he wants. Michael Sommer, head of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB), is leading the opposition to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's plans to trim back state benefits and make it easier for employers...