Wampum

A couple of years back, in the midst of my econoholic phase, I began a series tracking changes during the Bush Administration in inflation-adjusted hourly, or worker bee, wages. While non-adjusted wages continued to climb, the steady incremental increase in the Core CPI (rate of inflation) during the past few years began to weigh heavily on those wages, dragging down their actual worth to their recipients.

The last time I checked adjusted wages, things were still looking pretty grim. However, I had a spark of hope when I read this bit in reports of today's monthly employment data release:

The other closely watched number in the report, the average hourly wage, edged up 5 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $16.47, in line with forecasts of economists surveyed by Briefing.

I'm not sure why I was so optimistic; as in months past, those numbers were unadjusted for inflation. A quick search of Appendix B-4 of the Employment Situation Report indicated that themost recent actual number in 1982 $s (the benchmark), was a paltry $8.17. Of course, that number really means nothing alone - it's the trend which is significant:

When Bush took office, the average annual hourly wage was $8.11 ($16,869 yearly gross). It increased to an annual average of $8.27, ($17202) in 2003, with a peak of $8.31 ($17,285 )in November, 2003.

In 2004, annual average wages had fallen to $8.23 ($17, 118). By 2005, the annual average was down to $8.17 (16,994), for a net loss of $208 since 2003.

In comparison, during the Clinton Administration's tenure, the annual average of inflation adjusted hourly wages increased from $7.53 ($15,662) in 1993 to $8.04 ($16,723) in 2000, for an overall net gain of $1,061.

Ironically, during the same time, personal income numbers have steadily increased. However, if we know from this data above that the working class are actually losing ground, it's not hard to surmise that the rich are in fact getting richer, while the working poor are getting pooring.