No, the truth will not set you free. Nor necessarily get you elected.
Health care has dominated national debate for many cycles. But despite the popularity of the Affordable Care Act, Democrats consistently have undersold their accomplishments in that area. Not tooting your own horn in politics is like leaving money on the table. What voters don’t know you have done for them can hurt you. They have to be told. Again and again.
Which is why Democrats should put a bigger, brighter spotlight on the fastest rate of wage growth since 1983 (Business Insider):
For more than two months, businesses have faced difficulties in hiring. Data published Friday suggests employers are picking the simplest solution: paying workers more.
Average hourly earnings jumped $0.15 in May to $30.33, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its monthly jobs report. The increase is roughly twice as large as those seen before the pandemic and follows a $0.21 gain in April.
Employers desperate to rebuild their staffs are raising pay for hourly employees. McDonald’s, Chipotle and Bank of America announced pay increases in May.
Powering the tightness is a widespread desire among Americans to be paid more. The reservation wage — the average lowest wage at which people would take a job — skyrocketed through the pandemic for low-income workers and those without college degrees.
Meanwhile, job openings soared to a record high in March as businesses rushed to rehire. Only 1.4 available workers exist for each opening, according to government data. That’s half of the 20-year average, and the ratio is trending even lower.
For the first time in decades, it’s workers — not jobs — that are in short supply. And while the labor market tightness has slowed the recovery somewhat, President Joe Biden has made clear it’s a tradeoff he’s willing to make.
What the administration is not doing enough is making clear the connection between labor supply and demand issues and higher wages. Because the only economic indicator paycheck workers truly care about is how much spending money they have in their pockets.
The New Yorker‘s John Cassidy is at a loss over why the Biden administration is not doing more to promote this news: “wages are rising at a rate not seen in years, and low-wage workers are benefitting the most.”
Cassidy writes:
The details were spelled out by the economist Jason Furman, who headed the White House Council of Economic Advisers under Barack Obama. In a blog post written with Wilson Powell III, his colleague at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Furman pointed out that the adjusted wages for production workers and those in non-supervisory roles grew at an annual rate of 9.1 per cent in April and May, which is “faster than in any pre-pandemic two-month period since the early 1980s.” Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote on Twitter that, in the low-wage hospitality-and-leisure sector, the annualized rate of wage growth over the past three months has been seventeen per cent. Between March and May, the average hourly wage for non-supervisory workers in this part of the economy rose from $15.26 to $15.87, according to the jobs report. There were also notable wage pickups in retail and in transportation and warehousing.
After decades of slow and unequal wage growth, these developments are very welcome. But Biden didn’t dwell on them. Neither did Cecilia Rouse, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, in her blog post about the jobs report. But these wage figures should be especially welcome to Biden, who has spoken repeatedly about the need to rebuild the economy from the ground up. “We want to get something economists call ‘full employment,’ ” he said at an event in Cleveland, last week. “Instead of workers competing with each other for jobs that are scarce, we want employees to compete with each other to attract work. We want the companies to compete to attract workers.” Right now, the U.S. is nowhere near full employment: the total number of jobs is still about 7.6 million below where it was in February of 2020. But, because of the scrambling effect that the pandemic and pandemic-era policies have had on the economy, the labor market is behaving as if workers were scarce, with businesses like bars and restaurants obliged to compete for their attention rather than the other way around. And the effects are plain: higher wages.
As more people get vaccinated and schools fully open, and as supplemental unemployment benefits expire and more Americans reenter the job market, the balance of power between employers and employees may tip back toward employers, says Cassidy. But the uptick in wages already set will remain even if the upward pressure on wages subsides.
Even if that happens, though, the experience of the past few months will have demonstrated the potential advantages of maintaining a tight labor market, which gives workers the leverage that they need to obtain higher wages. As Biden stated in Cleveland, one of the goals of his ambitious economic proposals is to make this situation an enduring reality. “When it comes to the economy we’re building, rising wages aren’t a bug, they’re a feature,” he said. Insuring that they become a permanent feature of the U.S. economy won’t be easy, but it’s an eminently worthwhile goal. As the President continues his negotiations with Senate Republicans in the coming days about a possible compromise on infrastructure spending, he and his allies should be out there ballyhooing recent wage gains as a downpayment on what can be achieved in the future: a sustained period of strong job growth accompanied by strong wage growth. Now that would be something.
A good word, ballyhoo. Tell ’em how you’re going to help ’em; help ’em; then tell ’em how you helped ’em. Democrats need reminding not to forget the last part.