40% Of US Workers Now Earn Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage

Are American workers paid enough?  That is a topic that is endlessly debated all across this great land of ours.  Unfortunately, what pretty much everyone can agree on is that American workers are not making as much as they used to after you account for inflation.  Back in 1968, the minimum wage in the United States was $1.60 an hour.

That sounds very small, but after you account for inflation a very different picture emerges.  Using the inflation calculator that the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides, $1.60 in 1968 is equivalent to $10.74 today.

And of course the official government inflation numbers have been heavily manipulated to make inflation look much lower than it actually is, so the number for today should actually be substantially higher than $10.74, but for purposes of this article we will use $10.74.

If you were to work a full-time job at $10.74 an hour for a full year (with two weeks off for vacation), you would make about $21,480 for the year.

That isn't a lot of money, but according to the Social Security Administration, 40.28% of all workers make less than $20,000 a year in America today. So that means that more than 40 percent of all U.S. workers actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.  That is how far we have fallen. Read more >>

74% of small businesses will fire workers, cut hours under Obamacare

Despite the administration's controversial decision to delay forcing companies to join Obamacare for a year, three-quarters of small businesses are still making plans to duck the costly law by firing workers, reducing hours of full-time staff, or shift many to part-time, according to a sobering survey released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

"Small businesses expect the requirement to negatively impact their employees. Twenty-seven percent say they will cut hours to reduce full time employees, 24 percent will reduce hiring, and 23 percent plan to replace full time employees with part-time workers to avoid triggering the mandate," said the Chamber business survey provided to Secrets.

Under Obamacare, just 30 hours — not the nationally recognized 40 hours — is considered full-time. Companies with 50 full-time workers or more are required to provide health care, or pay a fine.

The administration recently decided to wait a year before businesses had to comply, but many are trying to get ready anyway. The president did not delay the mandate that Americans must have health insurance or pay a fine, however. Read more >>

1st Term: Americans Collecting Disability Hits All-Time Record

During President Barack Obama’s first term, the number of Americans collecting federal disability insurance increased by 1,385,418 to a record 8,827,795.

As a result, there is now one person collecting disability in this county for every 13 people working full-time. Forty-two years ago, in December 1968, there were 51 people working full-time in this country for each person collecting disability.

In January 2009, the month Obama was inaugurated, there were 7,442,377 Americans collecting federal disability insurance, according to the Social Security Administration. By December 2012, the latest month reported, there were 8,827,795 collecting disability, an increase of 1,385,418. With 115,868,000 people working full-time in December, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there was 1 person collecting disability for every 13 people working full-time. Read more >>

'Discouraged' workers face tough road back to employment

In 2008, Marcey Carver lost her job in the finance department of a Vermont car parts maker that closed its doors after the auto industry went into freefall.

With a degree in molecular biology, an MBA and a master's in accounting, Carver, 58, spent the next year and a half working temporary jobs, landing full-time work in October 2009 as finance director for a small non-profit. After 11 months, she was laid off again.

Since then she’s had temporary jobs, but her search for full-time work has run into a major roadblock.
“You can’t get the job you’re qualified for," she said. “But you can’t get a job you’re overqualified for because they think you’re going to quit as soon as you find something else.”

Carver doubts she'll ever land full-time work and now focuses on just making enough money to pay the bills. Millions of other Americans have come to the same conclusion as the worst economic recovery since World War II has left them sidelined and unable to replace the job they lost to the Great Recession. Read more >>

US is Becoming a Nation of Part-Time Workers

As today's NFP report once again showed, the average hourly earnings barely budged at $23.38 from $23.37 last month, and in fact declined on an inflation-adjusted basis. Why? Because as we [Zero Hedge] predicted both in February (and in 2010) the US is increasingly becoming a population of part-time workers, as full time jobs disappear for good, and are offshored abroad at best.

April confirmed everything we had been warning about: in the month, full time jobs dropped to 114,478 from 115,290, an epic drop of 812,000 in full time jobs which was the biggest since... March 2009! The offset? Why a surge in part-time jobs of course, which increased by 508,000 in the month of April.

So while seasonally adjusted, birth/death recasted jobs may have increased by 115,000, the real quality jobs, imploded, which unfortunately is merely a part of a longer-term secular trend as part of the new part-time normal. More...

Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment Hitting 10.3% in February

Dennis Jacobe, Chief Economist

PRINCETON, NJ -- Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.3% in February -- up from 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is now essentially the same as the 10.4% at the end of February 2010.

The percentage of part-time workers who want full-time work worsened considerably in February, increasing to 9.6% of the workforce from 9.1% at the end of January. A larger percentage of the U.S. workforce is working part time and wanting full-time work now than was the case a year ago (9.3%).

Underemployment Surges in February
Underemployment, a measure that combines part-time workers wanting full-time work with those who are unemployed, surged in February to 19.9%. This resulted from the combination of a sharp 0.5-point increase since the end of January in the percentage unemployed and a 0.5-point increase in the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work. Underemployment is now higher than it was at this point a year ago (19.7%).

Jobs Situation Deteriorates in February
There is essentially no difference between the unemployment rate now and the one at this time a year ago; January's rate, in contrast, showed a 1.1-percentage-point year-over-year improvement. This suggests that the real U.S. jobs situation worsened in February. That is, jobs are relatively less available now than in January. Read More...

America's Transformation To A Part-Time Worker Society

It is surprising that over the past several years very little has been said in the popular media about the fact that America is slowly (but surely) transforming from a full-time to part-time employed society. And while much has been said about the temporary and now past impact of census hiring, and government jobs on the workforce, there are still few mentions in mainstream media that since the depression started in December 2007, America has lost 10.5 million full time jobs, offset by a 2.8 million increase in part time jobs. Two recent mentions of this extremely troubling phenomenon were those by David Stockman, who characterized the recent unjustified economic (and naturally market) euphoria in terms that could have come straight from David Rosenberg's mouth, and, more recently, Van Hoisington. More...