High Income Mobility in the US

Letter to the Editor:

Antonia Feitz's claims (Letters 1/12) that the bottom 60 per cent of the US population have seen their incomes decline since 1979 and that 60 per cent of all US jobs created in that time paid less than $7000 are incorrect.

According to US Bureau of Census figures, the average income of households in the bottom 20 per cent have remained static, those of the next 40 per cent have increased marginally.  But income mobility is very high -- people do not stay at the bottom.

A University of Michigan panel study found that it was people who were in the lowest 20 per cent of income in 1975 who made the biggest gains in income over the next 16 years.

According to the 1999 Economic Report of the President, median hourly wages have remained about $11 an hour since 1979, while average workweek has remained about 35 hours since the mid 1980s, so it is quite impossible for 60 per cent of the almost 33 million jobs created in the US since 1979 (a growth of over 30 per cent) to have paid less than $7000.

Similarly, Jared Pearson (Letters 1/12) in his fulminations against unelected corporations seems to be quite unaware that the WTO is an organisation of governments, most of whom are elected.

Business representatives have observer status only, unless governments chose to include them in their delegations.  The campaign against the WTO is, alas, dominated by such misinformation.

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