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Median male worker hasn't seen a raise in 30 years
Article here. Excerpt:
'For all the advances since the era of teased-out rocker hair, one thing hasn’t changed for America’s average working man: the amount of bacon he brings home.
So says Rana Foroohar, a CNN global economic analyst and Time magazine assistant managing editor (who, by the way, snagged the first interview with new Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen). Appearing on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Foroohar brought up the point during a general discussion about the country’s economic woes.
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His 2012 study found real earnings of median males actually dropped by 19 percent since 1970, he found. "This means that the median man in 2010 earned as much as the median man did in 1964 — nearly a half century ago."
The reasons for the trend are complex, Greenstone told us. Yes, there have been sweeping changes in technology, machinery and trade over the last 30 or 40 years that have had some effect. More striking, he said, is that educational attainment among men, which used to climb with each generation, has dropped off.
"The decline in working is concentrated among the men who have lower levels of education," Greenstone said. "It’s not concentrated among the college-grad guy who is married to a super successful woman."
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Foroohar said, "the median male worker in this country has not seen a raise, inflation-adjusted, for 30 years, basically."
Federal data for 1982-2012 shows a slight increase, though the numbers show the real value of median male earnings have been in the range of $46,840-$51,670 for about 40 years. We found another point of view that says the real median income has declined significantly once men without jobs are factored in. We also found a broader definition of income that changes the dynamic.
Still, Foroohar clearly has a point. We rate her claim Mostly True.'
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