Some Facts About the U.S. Economic “Recovery”

• Inflation rose 3.1 per cent in the year to March but salaries climbed just 2.4 per cent, according to the Employment Cost Index. In the final three months of 2004, real wages fell by 0.9 per cent - the fastest rate of decline in 14 years.

• Even after April’s 274,000 gain in employment, there are 22,000 fewer private sector jobs than when the recession began in March 2001, a 0.02 per cent fall. At the same point in the recovery from the recession of the early 1990s, private sector employment was up 4.7 per cent. This does not take into account the 1.8 million Americans who have entered the workforce every year since then.

• More than 30 million workers earn poverty-level wages of less than $8.20 an hour.

• The typical U.S. worker must earn $15.37 an hour if they dedicate the standard 30 percent of their income to housing costs. Yet the millions work for the minimum wage of $5.15. The minimum wage would be $8.70 today if it had kept pace with inflation.

• Fifty years ago, corporations paid 60 percent of all federal taxes. By 2003, that was down to 16 percent. So individual taxpayers have to make up the difference, as corporate profits soar and wages fall.   

• The Senate budget currently under consideration includes $129 billion in new tax breaks for millionaires and a $2.8 billion cut in farm and nutrition programs (i.e., food stamps). The House has already passed a budget that cuts at least $15 billion for Medicaid and $5.3 billion from food stamps.
  

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