The Fight for Higher Wages

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/the-audacity-of-the-fight-for-higher-wages/?emc=eta1

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"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." (Albert Einstein)
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Jared Bernstein, former chief economist to Vice President Joseph Biden, saw an interesting intersection of two stories this week: first that the banks had an outstanding quarter with profits up 23% (primarily because they had to write off less loan losses), and, second that there were striking fast-food workers calling for an increase in their pay to $15 an hour (the average for these workers is roughly $9 per hour, up from $8.66 in 2009).

Putting this together with an upward revision in second quarter GDP that came out Thursday, corporate profits were at (or near) record highs as a share of national income while compensation "...fell again and is now at the lowest share it has been since the year (he) was born: 1955" caused Bernstein to conclude that something's broken in an economy that serves low wages to significant numbers of adults whose families depend on their earnings.

All this as the Conference Board (a business research group that is closely watched by CEOs) said on Thursday that its index of leading indicators increased .6% last month to a reading of 96. Some of the ten leading indicators that went up were: new orders for consumer goods and materials, new building permits issued, an index of stock prices and an index of consumer expectations.

Are corporate profits up partly at the expense of our lowest paid workers?