Wage Growth Slows Across the Country (axios.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Wages in the United States are going up, but their growth is shrinking, says Glassdoor chief economist Andrew Chamberlain. Wages should be rising an average of 3%-4% given the tightness of the job market, Chamberlain says. According to official data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, wage growth was a lower 2.6% in February. Glassdoor data -- based on a survey of 100,000 salaries posted by the jobs site every month -- show even lower growth, shrinking to just 1% last month.

Comments

H1B Program a success

[Seven Spirals]

If wages are stagnating or dropping, then the H1B program is doing exactly what it was designed to: keep IT wages low. After all we can't expect our poor corporate overlords to simply pay us more because they have been reaping record profits. Everyone knows that the investor class and C-suite are the only ones that deserve any of the pie. If you want a raise, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and start your own multi-billion-dollar international corporation!

Re:H1B Program a success

[DigiShaman]

You T it up, I'll knock it out of the park. Batter up!!

H1B was supposed to be about getting the Wernher von Braun's and Albert Einstein's of the world to be a part of the American all-star team of talent. But, that's not what it became, let alone used for. H1B is specifically about driving the cost of labor down. It's not that America has a shortage of STEM workers. It has in fact a shortage of cheap slave-wage applicants willing to take the job. For that kind of stress to pay ratio, there's better forms of employment that pay the same with a lot less stress. Meanwhile, the Fed keep printing money to pay for the benefits needed by those either under or unemployed. So the top 1% investor class reaps the rewards of slave labor, while the national debt payoff gets thrown to the middle class. Essentially, most American's are getting financially fucked in all orifices.

Take your lumps for Trump

[GameboyRMH]

Like the stock market losses due to recent attempts to initiate a trade war and the wealth transfers to the 1% through tax "reform," this downturn is just part of Making America Great Again, and you should accept your losses with pride for the glory of the Dear Leader. Things will get better...real soon...any day now...

Re:Take your lumps for Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

1) There's every indication that this is a huge stock market bubble, also the stock market isn't the economy.
2) Lowering taxes isn't always good; it's going to lead to cuts in services and a huge deficit (if you care about that sort of thing).
3) 5% wage growth in 2 years isn't good; if wages were growing at the nominal 3-4% each year, in two years they should have grown 6.09-8.16% due to compounding.

So, uh, yeah give him credit for doing things poorly and setting up a big stock market bubble? Sure.

Re: Take your lumps for Trump

[GameboyRMH]

Turning the economy around would mean tanking it. We can all be glad he hasn't done that.

Give the guy some time, he's showing a lot of "progress" on that front recently.

Re:Huh, wonder why

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, so the wealthy are pulling strings to keep their wealth but we can fix this by stopping immigration?

I...don't think that's the solution you're looking for.

Where's all that tax cut money

[mark_reh]

that the rich are supposed to be using to pay Americans higher wages?

Re:Where's all that tax cut money

[omnichad]

Lots of companies gave one-time bonuses to employees, while themselves getting a year-after-year benefit. They probably see this as a bribe to employees to convince them that the tax cuts are what they want too.

Not just the H1-B Program

[rsilvergun]

FedEx was about to open a new distribution center in Indiana but they skipped it because they'd increased productivity so much at their existing centers they didn't need it. We've become massively more productive.

Also, anyone else find it telling that the phrase used to describe succeeding without help describes a physically impossible event? It's like a bad joke everybody ran with.

Stop abandoning the working class

[rsilvergun]

Trump is a consequence of abandoning the working class. People like Hilary Clinton (and a lot of /.ers) tell guys in their 30s and 40s they need to retrain for skills they couldn't learn in their 20s with loans they can't afford and no money coming in to support themselves let alone the families they had before their jobs were automated/outsourced/replaced with an H1-B.

I've noticed a trend where everybody's in support of the government stepping in to help out until it's somebody else. Then it becomes teh Socialisms. This needs to stop. The working class needs solidarity. We need to stop pretending we can make it on our own and that there's no class warfare going on. We're getting picked apart here. Fighting among ourselves for scraps while the ruling class laughs in our face.

Policy wise this means:

• Medicare for all
• End the wars
• New New Deal
• Fix our infrastructure
• College for everyone

Nobody left behind. Everyone gets cared for and we stop complaining about having to pay for the occasional lazy surfer dude who doesn't work much or at all.

Re:Huh, wonder why

[Archangel Michael]

"Who aren't causing trouble"

Being here illegally is causing trouble. Why? Because it encourages others to do the same, bypassing our laws. They all aren't paying taxes. They all aren't behaving themselves, They all aren't doing what you're claiming all of them are doing.

Hell you can be arrested for felonies and be released back into the public in sanctuary cities. You can be deported multiple times and sneak back in and commit crimes and be release back into society.

You are block grouping a variety of people together, conflating them as a single unit and giving them a pass in doing so. You're partially why, as a group, they are causing problems, because people like yourself make no distinction between breaking the law, and not breaking the law.

At least my solution gives no excuses for crossing the boarder without permission. You're just excusing it as if it were nothing.