PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

The State of Work in the Age of Anxiety
by Harold Meyerson Tuesday, Dec. 03, 2013 at 1:11 PM
marc1seed@yahoo.com

From 1947 to 1974, American workers brought home most of the wealth they produced. Since 1974, they have steadily lost power - and they're getting just a fraction of the wealth they produce today. Harold Meyerson is editor-at-large at The American Prospect and a columnist for The Washington Post.

to read Harold Meyerson's "The 40-Year Slump" published in The American Prospect, December 2013, click on

http://prospect.org/article/40-year-slump

more at http://www.freembtranslations.net

From the end of World War II through the mid-1970s, American jobs—and with them, the American economy—steadily improved. President Kennedy’s description of how the economy worked was substantially accurate: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Pay raises matched increases in the nation’s productivity at all points along the economic spectrum. Workers at the bottom of the pay scale saw their wages increase in tandem with everyone else’s. In growing numbers, employers provided pensions and health insurance to their workers. But beginning in the ’70s, the rising tide began leaving some, then most, and today nearly all boats behind.

www.booktv.org