This article is fromCapital & Main,an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.
Theresa, 25, a cashier at Key Food in Brooklyn, was excited when she received a raise a few months ago. “But I’ve barely noticed it, because everything is getting more expensive,” says Theresa, who requested that we use only her first name. “Groceries, bills, you name it. My paycheck just disappears. It’s depressing because I don’t know when I’ll get another raise.”
The situation is the same in the hospitality industry, in which some hotel maids and housekeepers in Los Angeles will soon earn $25 an hour, but it hardly covers the cost-of-living increases they experience, says Lorena Lopez, an organizing director atUnite HereLocal 11, the union that represents hotel and restaurant workers.
她说：“从历史上看，他们还没有得到应有的工资，即使是最近的薪水，当人们无法支付租金或将食物放在桌子上时，这还不够。”
虽然最近的薪水肯定是一个积极的发展，这将使数百万工人受益，但他们在多年的工资停滞期内并没有接近弥补。布鲁金斯机构经济学家加里·伯特斯（Gary Burtless）说：“还有很长的路要走。
餐馆和超市的平均薪水已超过每小时15美元，这是过去十年中许多工人要求的新基准“Fight for $15 movement”that is现在由近80％的美国工人赚取, up from 60% in 2014. Wages have increased at a 6% annual pace over the past two years in the hospitality and leisure industry. And nearly a quarter of small businesses said they plan to increase pay after the COVID-19 pandemic is over, according to美国商会最近进行的一项调查。
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh is encouraged by the wage growth,在接受采访时说财富that “where we’re headed right now, all signs are incrementally going in a good, positive direction.”
Well, not all signs. Many of those pay raises have been wiped out by a steep increase in inflation. The Consumer Price Index has过去一年上升5.4％这是自2008年中期以来最大的增长。结果，“价格上涨超过了2021年的薪酬增长，导致真正的薪酬下降”彼得森国际经济学院。2021年6月，尽管休闲和酒店业的增加，但针对通货膨胀调整的工资和收益的总体薪酬是2019年12月水平的0.7％，比大流行前趋势低2％。换句话说，许多工人实际上在一天结束时最终取得了削减。生活成本的上涨已经吞噬了他们的额外工资。
But in recent months,头条新闻集中在努力雇用工人的企业的困境上并提供戏剧性的薪酬为员工提高，尤其是在经济低薪部门。在城市社区和小镇大街上even free iPhones）由国家连锁店和本地企业发布，一年后大流行后迫切需要重新开放。
Conservative economists have argued against a minimum wage increase, believing that such an increase in some states has hurt business. In an今年早些时,华尔街日报blamed a $4-an-hour “hero pay” increase to workers at Kroger supermarkets who worked during the height of the pandemic last year for the chain’s decision to close two stores in Long Beach, California.The Journal’s William McGurn wrote that “a minimum wage is a price, and that when you make it more expensive to hire workers, you price some of them out of the job market.”
Employer groups have alsoblamedgovernment stimulus benefits during the pandemic for forcing businesses to increase salaries to compete. TheU.S. Chamber of Commerce和国家餐厅协会会员have called for an end to the enhanced unemployment program. In the wake of April’s weaker-than-expected jobs report, the chamber said: “The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market.” But the商会在六月的调查削弱了分析的削弱，只有16％的失业美国人指出“不值得从事工作”的利益扩大。
Typically, wages have increased in line with greater productivity, but recent history has defied that trend, with wages lagging and the average American’s purchasing power the same as it was 40 years ago. As the Rand Corp.去年发现, a full-time worker currently earning the national median wage of $50,000 would be making close to $100,000 now if the country’s economic growth had continued to be shared across the socioeconomic spectrum over the last 45 years the way it was in the decades after World War II.
而且，低端的最近工资增长并没有帮助减少收入不平等，实际上increased during the pandemicsince the highest paid Americans saw sky-high raises. In 2020, the earnings of CEOs at the largest public companies were on average351 times自2000年第一次技术繁荣以来，其行业中典型工人的差异也很大根据经济政策研究所。
A thriving economy should benefit all workers, not just those at the top, says Joe Gagnon, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who is hopeful that wages will grow faster than inflation in months to come. “If the economy is growing,” he says, “then it should grow for everybody.”
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