Today is Labor Day, and unlike almost every other newspaper in America, our sad small town newspaper the Arizona Daily Star (“All the news that Jim Click decides is fit to print”) failed to publish an editorial opinion recognizing the working men and women of America. Show some respect!
So to correct the Star’s slight to the working men and women of America, here are two editorials today from a real newspaper.
The New York Times editorializes Labor Today:
In the months before Labor Day last year, job growth was so slow that economists said it would take until 2021 to replace the jobs that were lost or never created in the recession and its aftermath.
The pace has picked up since then; at the current rate, missing jobs will be recovered by 2018. Still, five years into an economic recovery that has been notable for resurging corporate profits, the number and quality of jobs are still lagging badly, as are wages and salaries.
In 2013, after-tax corporate profits as a share of the economy tied with their highest level on record (in 1965), while labor compensation as a share of the economy hit its lowest point since 1948. Wage growth since 1979 has not kept pace with productivity growth, resulting in falling or flat wages for most workers and big gains for corporate coffers, shareholders, executives and others at the top of the income ladder.
Worse, the recent upturn in growth, even if sustained, will not necessarily lead to markedly improved living standards for most workers.
