Why Manufacturing Workers Have Seen Their Wages Fall Under Trump
Eric Schaal
June 29, 2018
You don’t need to follow Paul Ryan on Twitter to know how badly the House Speaker (R-Wisconsin) wanted to pass the GOP tax plan. While trying to sell the legislation to Americans, Ryan released this bold statement:
With more jobs, higher wages, and a stronger economy, American workers and families would be the greatest beneficiaries of this reform.
Yet the tax cuts did not play out that way. Right away, huge corporations began laying off workers. Afterward, the same companies started a run of unprecedented stock buybacks topping $200 billion.
In June 2018, maybe the worst news of all came directly from the Trump administration’s Labor Department. Between May 2017 and May 2018, workers in manufacturing and construction jobs saw their wages decrease.
Here’s why paychecks are falling even though Trump and other officials say the economy is stronger than ever.
Wage increases are slower than inflation.
Since the GOP tax plan favors the wealthiest Americans and corporations, it would actually take getting a raise for the average worker to see more money on a weekly basis. Despite the tweeting and boasting from Trump early in 2018, those bonuses and raises were few and far between. (Compared to stock buybacks, they were nonexistent.)
So workers who’ve waited for a boost from the tax cuts never got it. Meanwhile, their bosses weren’t offering raises, as the data showed.
According to a Washington Post Wonkblog, that decline in wages can be attributed to regular inflation (2.9% over that period). In 2018, growing expenses (especially higher oil prices) outpaced any actual pay bump (2.8%). So the massive amount of American construction and manufacturing workers are actually worse off under Trump.
more:
http://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/why-manufacturing-workers-have-seen-their-wages-fall-under-trump.html/
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