@maporsche,
I can't explain your chart, can you explain mine? It shows median weekly earnings, inflation adjusted, going up since Obama took office.
This is interesting-quote maporsche:
Quote:And your comment "since the newer, lesser paid workers get laid off first, leaving only the older, better paid workers' earnings to be counted" runs COMPLETELY counter to what common sense would tell you and counter to what my business does when it chooses to lay off people. The older, better paid workers are the FIRST to go during layoffs. Absolutely the first.
Please note the chart below, median weekly earnings in constant 1982-84 dollars, which accounts for inflation:
Now, please note 2008 qtr 4. Notice how inflation adjusted earnings went sharply UP-2.7% in one quarter. Please also note that we LOST 2.6 Million Full Time jobs during that same quarter. Large job losses do not coincide with falling earnings. Large job hirings do not necessarily coincide with rising earnings, since the new hires usually get paid a little less than the experienced workers who have been on the job. At some point, if the good hiring goes on for awhile, eventually earnings go up, but that is when the economy is really going great guns.