A CNN article explains how wages are not matching the increase in the GDP for most workers. The article says most workers real wages (wages adjusted for inflation) have been relatively stagnant this decade.
After rising quickly in the second half of the 1990s, most workers real wages have been stagnant in the 2000s, especially since 2003
While productivity jumped almost 20 percent since 2000, the real median hourly wage of all workers rose just 3 percent in the same period. Since 2003, productivity has risen 5 percent, while the median hourly wage fell 1.1 percent.
Women saw a bigger rise in wages between 2000 and 2007, up 4.7 percent. Real median wages for men during the same period were up just 1.1 percent.
Both high school and college workers saw hourly wage gains of about 2.5 percent since 2000.
Yet, in the period between 2003 and 2007, wage gains for median workers, male and female, as well as high school and college workers have all been flat or falling.
A chart on workinglife.org shows you how wages increased very little or decreased from 2000 through 2004. The data in that chart only goes through 2004 but after 2004 things got even worse. You can see another chart in this article. This is really bad news for workers especially when you look at the incredible rise in food and gas over the past few years. Only those wage earners on the very high end of the earnings curve have been seeing much in the way of wage increases. The CNN article also says that real wages for earners in the top 95% have risen 9.4% since 2000 and 5.1% since 2003.
