U.S. workers have endured "a decade of flat wages," study says

More than 1,500 people stood in line at the carpenters union in New York City just for a chance to land an apprenticeship. Some of the applicants were in line a week for jobs that start at $45 an hour.

"You're not going to be a doctor or a scientist; you can't beat this blue-collar job," said one job-seeker named James. "You know, this is a great job, and that's why there's lots and lots of people here because, you know, they just don't hand out jobs like this every day."

A majority of U.S. workers have experienced a decade of flat wages, according to new research by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. It found the median weekly wage last year was $768. That's the same as 12 years earlier when adjusted for inflation. Over that same period, wages fell for 70 percent of workers.

Economists place much of the blame on a labor market that hasn't recovered from the Great Recession. "I've had friends that went to four years of college, did four years of college, and graduated and waited years to even get a job," Craig Carr said. Read more >>

Job Picture Looks Bleak for 2013 College Grads

Even as new numbers show the overall employment picture improving—or at least not getting worse—new college graduates may not be so lucky when it comes to finding work.

A survey released last week from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) reported that businesses plan to hire only 2.1 percent more college graduates from the class of 2013 than they did from the class of 2012.

That's way down from an earlier NACE projection of a 13 percent hiring rate for 2013 grads. (Read More: Surging Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing the System)

This comes even as the college graduate jobless picture seems to be getting better. The rate of unemployment in 2012 for college grads—defined as 20-24 years old—was 6.3 percent, down from the 8.3 percent for 2011 graduates, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rate in 2010 was 9.4 percent.

It's not only a bleaker job outlook 2013 graduates face. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the class of 2013 will likely earn less over the next 10-15 years, than they would have before the recession hit and jobs were more plentiful. Read more >>

Class of 2013 faces grim job prospects

The Class of 2013 will face an "extremely difficult" job market when college students graduate in the months ahead, according to a new research report. Unemployment remains high for young college grads. For those who will find jobs, many will probably have to settle for low-level positions, the Economic Policy Institute said Wednesday.

The unemployment rate for recent college grads between the ages of 21 to 24 has averaged 8.8% over the last year, according to Labor Department data. Once you also include young grads who are working part-time for economic reasons, and those who have stopped looking for a job in the last year, the so-called "underemployment rate" is a whopping 18.3%.
Sure, the job market has improved during the past few years. But both these rates remain higher than pre-recession levels.

Meanwhile, graduating in the wrong place at the wrong time is likely to affect the earnings potential of these students over their entire careers.
"On average, they are not going to do well," said Heidi Shierholz, an EPI economist and co-author of the report. "They will face lower earnings, than they otherwise would have, for maybe the next couple of decades." Read more >>

Low-paying jobs are here to stay

Stuck in a job with lousy pay? Better get used to it. Some 28% of workers are expected to hold low-wage jobs in 2020, roughly the same percentage as in 2010, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.
The study defines low-paying jobs as those with wages at or below what full-time workers must earn to live above the poverty level for a family of four. In 2011, this was $23,005, or $11.06 an hour.

The economy won't support much growth in jobs with higher salaries, said Rebecca Thiess, policy analyst at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, who crunched government data to come up with these projections.
"Far too many economic pundits take for granted that the economy of the future will demand far greater skills and credentials," she wrote in a recent paper.

While all eyes are on Friday's monthly jobs report to find out how many positions were added in July, a growing number of economists are concerned with the quality of the jobs being created. Lower wage occupations grew by 3.2% over the year ending in the first quarter of 2011, according to the National Employment Law Project. This was fueled mainly by the expansion of retail salespeople, office clerks, cashiers, food prep workers and store clerks, whose median hourly wages ranged from $7.51 to $13.52. Read more >>