Wages Have Been Increasing At 1% A Year On Avg Since 2002

[interestrateripoff]

Can't find this online it was in NOTW today.

"Britain's workers have taken a massive kick in the pay packet over the last seven years, new figures reveal.

Wages have been rising by a pitiful 1% a year on average since 2002 an increase of barely £2 a week.

And some parts of the country have seen their income plummet by a fifth as hundreds of thousands of staff were forced to accept pay cuts because of the recession"

But what the article fails to mention is that house price increases have been making up for this lack of income. Marvellous.

If I get chance tomorrow I'll try and scan in the article.

It's on p41 of today's paper.

[cashinmattress]

Well, at least those pityful pay rises can be spent on worthy purchases, such as:

[yellerkat]

Found the LINK.

Interesting graphic.

[Guest UK Debt Slave]

I'm earning the same money today as I was in 2004

I'd say the cost of living, excluding mortgages, is 50% higher

I don't run a car anymore and thank goodness. I don' think I could afford it

[interestrateripoff]

Found the LINK.

Interesting graphic.

Has anyone got the data for what's happened to house prices in these areas in the same time period.

[Y-QUERK]

Has anyone got the data for what's happened to house prices in these areas in the same time period.

They went up.

[Godley]

wondered when this would happen.

The final piece of the jigsaw is significant wage increases, so the sheeple are now being told to 'you have been screwed over the last 7 years.................aren't you angry, get angry and start organising yourselves'.

[Bloo Loo]

wondered when this would happen.

The final piece of the jigsaw is significant wage increases, so the sheeple are now being told to 'you have been screwed over the last 7 years.................aren't you angry, get angry and start organising yourselves'.

what, like their public sector brothers and sisters?

[OnlyMe]

wondered when this would happen.

The final piece of the jigsaw is significant wage increases, so the sheeple are now being told to 'you have been screwed over the last 7 years.................aren't you angry, get angry and start organising yourselves'.

What needs to happen is a dramatic fall in the cost of living.

The rest of the world are not going to pay for our pretend cost of living built on fake monetary policy actions.

[clubberdude]

Although they quote wages going up by 1% a year, in real terms this equates to a substantial rate of fall of real wages when inflation is taken into account. Inflation has been 5-10% year-on-year in real terms.

what, like their public sector brothers and sisters?

Its not all good in the public sector tbh, I'm thinking of defecting to the private sector myself.

[Dorkins]

What needs to happen is a dramatic fall in the cost of living.

Couldn't agree more. We have an economy where the top 10% are doing very nicely, the bottom 10% are poor as per usual, and for the middle 80% there is little point in working hard and saving as the high (and rising) cost of living and negative real interest rates means that your quality of life will carry on slowly declining whatever you do. It's totally dysfunctional.

[Executive Sadman]

Is this before or after the double digit increases in council tax every year and so on?

Its only because things have been like this so long that people accept it as normal or even sustainable.

[mdman]

If you exclude those working in finance (the jobs with the big bonuses that is), I bet that 1% would end up closer to zero or even negative for the rest of us.

Same thing has happened in the USA. The people have been taken for a ride by global financiers. With deflating wages, rising taxes and housing costs, the NICE decade turned out the nasty for many.

[Fudge]

This was always the plan.

To drive wages down and cut work benefits like pensions whilst shifting the tax burden to working people through pay PAYE.

A boom in house prices and cheap credit obscured what was really happening but now the trap has been sprung and cheap credit has stopped and house prices will fall back to normal.

It was a consequence of following neo liberal policies and globalization that wages and conditions of working people in the UK and USA had to be cut drastically in order to compete with workers in China and India.

If the general population had been told up front or while it was happening then there would have been mass resistance in the form of strikes and social unrest so we were deliberately deceived.

The majority of people wont even understand what has happened or why, they will just experience being made redundant or having their house repossessed and that there arent any good jobs about and the only jobs available are casualized part time jobs.

[tinker]

This was always the plan.

To drive wages down and cut work benefits like pensions whilst shifting the tax burden to working people through pay PAYE.

A boom in house prices and cheap credit obscured what was really happening but now the trap has been sprung and cheap credit has stopped and house prices will fall back to normal.

It was a consequence of following neo liberal policies and globalization that wages and conditions of working people in the UK and USA had to be cut drastically in order to compete with workers in China and India.

If the general population had been told up front or while it was happening then there would have been mass resistance in the form of strikes and social unrest so we were deliberately deceived.

The majority of people wont even understand what has happened or why, they will just experience being made redundant or having their house repossessed and that there arent any good jobs about and the only jobs available are casualized part time jobs.

It's criminal really. Drive wages down, yet drive upwards their cost of living - and con them into 'feeling' wealthy.

You are right of course, most people have no idea what is/has been going on.

[miko]

It's criminal really. Drive wages down, yet drive upwards their cost of living - and con them into 'feeling' wealthy.

You are right of course, most people have no idea what is/has been going on.

But now it has all backfired, you cannot lie and get away with it where numbers are concerned numbers will always catch you out in the end . The numbers do not add up .

[steve99]

This was always the plan.

To drive wages down and cut work benefits like pensions whilst shifting the tax burden to working people through pay PAYE.

A boom in house prices and cheap credit obscured what was really happening but now the trap has been sprung and cheap credit has stopped and house prices will fall back to normal.

It was a consequence of following neo liberal policies and globalization that wages and conditions of working people in the UK and USA had to be cut drastically in order to compete with workers in China and India.

If the general population had been told up front or while it was happening then there would have been mass resistance in the form of strikes and social unrest so we were deliberately deceived.

The majority of people wont even understand what has happened or why, they will just experience being made redundant or having their house repossessed and that there arent any good jobs about and the only jobs available are casualized part time jobs.

This was all planned back in the 70's within a network of right-wing think tanks. First off the block was Regan and Thatcher and weve followed this course now for nearly 30 years. I have no idea what the final end game was planned to be but it seems the effects are taking place very much as planned, ie no real wage rises, falling wages via hidden inflation, erroded job security leading to fearfull workers being more 'productive', erroded job entitlments for real workers, increase the tax burden on the lower to mid paid via regressive taxes, eg VAT increases and council tax etc in the UK, workers power base weakened via the demonisation of unions, outsourcing and immigration where possible (US even worse than UK for this, lots of Mexicans as slaves or $2ph). And the big one which is now showing up as the achilles heel of this plan, Perma-debt, wherby workers take on more debt in order to keep up a lifestyle, house price equity increases were the perfect trap for this with MEW and the added false security the 'Value' of their houses provided. On the bright side, as very much planned, we have bankers owning a much bigger slice of everything, eg they own around 60%+ of all housing whereas in the 1960's it was around 40%, The othewise rich have been pandered to by successive governments who in fact are the same animal whether tory/lab rebublican/democrat etc, The workers do as they are told with the right look on their face and in fact so many have been fooled over the last two decades into believing the hype re their employers are on the side of god and will always do the right thing and only an idiot would believe in unions etc. Im sure this list is endless but those who are old enough will realise that normal workers(and that includes that 80% of the population who now believe themselves to be middle class but in fact dont have any of the backup and security the lable implies) reached their peak of civilisation sometime in the mid 70's and at that stage the powers that be worked night and day to destroy the economy in order to reverse the tables. (the strikes and chaos of the 70's was caused exclusively by the arrogance and incredibly poor quality of British management.)

[interestrateripoff]

But now it has all backfired, you cannot lie and get away with it where numbers are concerned numbers will always catch you out in the end . The numbers do not add up .

They'll change the way to add up so it works again.

[macca]

This is what unions were there to protect.

[Fudge]

One of the lies we was sold when we joined the EU was flexicurity.

Employers would provide plenty of jobs and job security and in return workers would be flexible.

But there was only plenty of jobs because a super boom was created, now we are in the bust phase there are few jobs and what jobs there are, are casualized, part time Mcjobs.

Look at this report out today, the CBI are showing what the employers are working towards.

A more flexible workforce should evolve with some firms that might mean a smaller core workforce and a larger, so-called flexiforce.

A small core workforce of managers who get good pay, pensions, private healthcare etc and the rest i.e. the workers get poor wages,

no benefits like pensions, not paid for holidays or if they are sick, no job security etc.

A 2 tier workforce.

CBI sees recession as catalyst for change

[TwoWolves]

I'm glad to see so many members of the site can see that Globalisation and Immigration have been the cornerstone of this decline. Nevertheless the "right wing think tank" and "the unions could have saved us" explanations beggar belief.

I guess you'll be voting for another round of New Labour come the next election. I pity my children and the future they have in store.

[Fudge]

This is what unions were there to protect.

What are unions? they are only working people organising collectively in an attempt to protect themselves.

Working people stopped doing this, they became atomised, selfish and individualistic.

Their world is their house and garden.

Use words like community and solidarity and they will laugh in your face.

[council dweller]

One of the lies we was sold when we joined the EU was flexicurity.

Employers would provide plenty of jobs and job security and in return workers would be flexible.

But there was only plenty of jobs because a super boom was created, now we are in the bust phase there are few jobs and what jobs there are, are casualized, part time Mcjobs.

Look at this report out today, the CBI are showing what the employers are working towards.

A small core workforce of managers who get good pay, pensions, private healthcare etc and the rest i.e. the workers get poor wages,

no benefits like pensions, not paid for holidays or if they are sick, no job security etc.

A 2 tier workforce.

CBI sees recession as catalyst for change

I found that report quite chilling.

As a part-time worker I now find that I'm now working with people who are on short term, part-time contracts with no holidays, sickness etc. This seems to have happened over the past year. Even when you think that you're on the bottom there are people being made worse off than you! Christ on a jet-ski!

[Bloo Loo]

One of the lies we was sold when we joined the EU was flexicurity.

Employers would provide plenty of jobs and job security and in return workers would be flexible.

snip

I went on a chamber of commerce arranged trip to the EU some time ago.

I asked a eurobod (and this was before we joined), why he thought the jobs would increase.

he said the europeans would start to buy our services....we should act now ( about 1988 IIRC) to form trading "partnerships" with european firms, both to trade in the Uk and in their countries.

I asked: isnt it possible that the europeans already HAVE people selling and making the stuff we deal in..

he said, of course they do, but increased competition is going to create jobs...

I think what he really meant was that GOVERNMENT jobs would be increasing.....his name Dennis Healey....not the guy with the eyebrows though.

[Fudge]

I found that report quite chilling.

As a part-time worker I now find that I'm now working with people who are on short term, part-time contracts with no holidays, sickness etc. This seems to have happened over the past year. Even when you think that you're on the bottom there are people being made worse off than you! Christ on a jet-ski!

Yes and they get around the minimum wage by getting people to work 45-50 hours and paying them for 37.

And they prefer employing immigrants who cant speak english and are too afraid to complain in case the employer calls the

in the immigration police.