Middle Class Can't Get Ahead

[tomsang]

Interesting Article! 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/middle-class-cant-get-ahead/

[sheepstache]

Really interesting point, but it's also the law that you have to provide health benefits to employees working over 35 hours... so employers carefully avoid giving people more than 35 hours. And my guess is that most of the people earning less than the current threshold for overtime are in minimum-wage-type jobs where they're interchangeable. So the company will just hire another person to avoid the higher hourly rate rather than letting the first have more hours. Also, as he points out, the exemptions apply to nearly everyone. Nearly everyone who would consider themselves middle class certainly.

[market timer]

I disagree with the writer's premise that you can legislate higher pay. Wages for the middle class were higher in the 70s in large part because labor supply was lower. Since the 1970s, labor supply has increased from women entering the workforce and offshoring/outsourcing to places like China and India. Changing the overtime law will not reverse these long run trends.

[Milizard]

Seeing as how my husband is being worked 50+ hours/week for a $43k + 1 stinking week of vacation per year, I think that it was an excellent article.  There is a definite trend towards squeezing as much as possible out of lowly salary workers.  I saw it in my own job, and DH just lost an hourly coworker to a new salaried one.