Latest / Trumponomics / Why Labor Unions Don't Have the Clout They Used To

Transcript

Why Labor Unions Don't Have the Clout They Used To · Trumponomics

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So Dan, before we get started today, we just wanted
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to take a moment to let everyone know about something
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: new from Bloomberg. Do you want to hear what it is?
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Go for it? Well. Starting now, you can actually use
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: our Io s app or Bloomberg's Google Chrome extension to
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: scan any news story on any website, instantly revealing relevant
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: news and market data from Bloomberg and other sources related
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: to the companies and the people you're reading about. So really,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: no matter where you're reading the news, you can bring
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the power of Bloomberg's news and data with you. It's
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: pretty amazing. Download our Io s app or search for
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the Bloomberg extension on the Chrome Store to try it out.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Learn more at bloomberg dot com. Backslash lanes. Just about
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: every indicator of the US labor market shows that jobs
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: are plentiful and we're pushing the limits of how many
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: people can be employed. But many Americans still aren't seeing
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: the kind of lift to their wallets that were used
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to with these kinds of numbers in the labor market.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: One possible explanation is that Americans are not organized in
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: labor unions like they used to be. While unions have
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: had some notable successes, like this year's deal by Hollywood
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: writers that averted a strike, or the victory by forty
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: thou unionized Verizon workers last year. Most American workers lack
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the bargaining power that they had throughout much of the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: twenty century. Today on Benchmark, we're speaking with an expert
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: on this subject, Jared Bernstein, the former chief economist to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Vice President Joe Biden. I'm Scott Landman and economics editor
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: for Bloomberg News in Washington. Joining me as a guest
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: co host today is Patricia Leiah, a reporter covering the U.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: S economy, also here in d C. Patty, thanks for
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: being here, h I'm really happy to be here. Thank
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you so. Patty, You've just covered the latest US employment
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: report that came out last Friday. What stood out to
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you in that report? Yeah, so the headline number for
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: April was pretty good, especially after a disappointing March that
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: was partly caused by that snowstorm we saw that affected
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: most of the northeast Stella. But even as the main
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: headline number came above, estimates, on the jobless rate fell,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: which growth was still a bit disappointing. It's just not
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: at the level where it used to be in previous recoveries, right,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: and that's been a puzzle for a while. Now the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: labor market is getting tighter and tighter, but we're just
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: not seeing the kind of three percent four percent pay
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: gains that had happened in previous expansions when we had
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a tight labor market that kind of looked like this.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: So for more on this now, let's bring in Jared Bernstein,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: since he has been a senior fellow at the Center
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: on Budget and Policy Priorities, and before working in the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Obama administration, he was at the Economic Policy Institute and
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: was also Deputy Chief Economist at the Labor to Artment
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: during the Clinton years. He's also a pretty good basketball player,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: as I found out some years ago. Jared joins us
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: by phone from his office in Washington. Now, Jared, thanks
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: for spending time with us on Benchmark. My pleasure, though
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I have to say my teammates last night would not
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: describe me as a pretty good basketball player. But at
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: any rate, I'm I'm better at the labor market stuff.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I guess, well we'll focus on that today. Good. So,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: there there are lots of things, Jared that are different
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: about having a job in America today compared with forty
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: or fifty years ago. Was it really better back then?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Or are we looking through rose colored glasses at the past. Well,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: in terms of the connection between wages and the job market,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: things were better for various groups of workers, not everybody.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: In fact, if you look at the gender wage differential,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: women were earning a lot less than men for comparable,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: comparable work back then than they are now. There was
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: still discrimination in the job market in other ways as well.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: But if you're simply talking about basically two things, the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: tightness in the labor market and the way that tightness
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: mapped onto people's paychecks, Yeah, that was that was better
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: back then. So let me give you a pretty mind
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: blowing statistic on this. Uh it used to be the case,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I was Patty was saying, at least by some metrics,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the current job market might be described as being at
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: full employment. I'm not sure I quite see it, but
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: that's a certainly a legitimate thing to declare. Well, since
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, we've been at full employment less than thirty
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: percent of the time. Before eight, say, the late forties
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: to nineteen eighty, we were at full employment almost seventy
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: percent of the time, so we were much more likely
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: to have a tight labor market, and a tight labor
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: market delivers some bargaining cloud to uh middle and lower
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: rage workers. Of course, as you kind of mentioned in
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: your intro, we were more unionized back then as well,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: so economic growth mapped onto the paychecks of middle wage
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: workers more uh robustly then than it does now. Let
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: me share some facts with our listeners from the Bureau
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: of Labor Statistics. The union membership rate was at ten
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: point seven percent in it was over three and even
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the state with the highest union membership, New York, is
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: at uh just under the lowest of South Carolina at
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: one point six When when you think about the economy
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: being at full employment, how how has that particular change
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: affected the American worker? Are people not organized in unions
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: to be able to take advantage of a full employment
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: situation like they used to be? Well, I guess the
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: way I look at it is a little bit differently,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and the the in American style job markets, you know,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: we have a kind of a more rigorous version of
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: capitalism than they do in in other more social democracies. Uh,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: your paycheck is not just a function of how skilled,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: you are, your value added. That's kind of what they
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: teach you an economics class. But that's part of it,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: no question. But it's also a matter of your bargaining power,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: your bargaining clout. And historically there have been two factors
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: that have contributed to the bargaining clout of middle and
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: lower wage workers, or at least two factors. One is
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: very tight labor market and f I mentioned earlier, that's
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: been very much the exception, not the rule, over the
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: last few decades, um and And the other is unionization.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: And your numbers are correct, I would simply um add
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: to them that in the private sector, which is where
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: most people work, uh, the unionization rate is only seven percent.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So that's that's you know, getting a way below not
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: only where it used to be, but where it is
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: in in other advanced economies. There are some other factors
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: that help determine wages at the level of the minimum
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: way age, to the extent to which labor standards are enforced,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: the structure of employment. You've got the gig work that
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: can sometimes play out in paychecks and ways that are
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: negative for workers. But if you put it all together,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the factors that used to give workers, more bargaining power,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: tight labor markets, high unionization rates, rigorously enforced labor standards.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Many of those are things of the past. Right, you
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: think that would be pretty good to be in an union.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: If you're a worker at a D and T, you
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: have a pension, you have ritary health benefits, you probably
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of other parts that people in the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: rest of corporate America gave up a long time ago. Right, Well, yes,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: there are definitely some unions that are still able to
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: deliver that those kinds of benefits to their members. Um.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Public sector unions often do a pretty good job, which
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: is one reason why they're under siege and many states
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: throughout the throughout the nation. Uh. And if you compare
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: union workers to non union workers just based on their wages,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: controlling for everything else, there's still a significant premium there somewhere,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I guess between ten and fiftent at least. But an
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: interesting finding that that's germained to our conversation is that
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: when unionization rates get higher, so right now they're about
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: as you said here, but back when they're or if
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: you go over to Europe and you see uh, union
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: rates that are considerably higher than that you end up
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: with a lot more pattern bargaining or collective bargaining where
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: union wages enforced the pay of workers outside the union sector.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: So there's a spill over there that can happen as well.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: And you certainly don't see that when you're down to
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: the kind of levels of of collective bargaining that we
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: have our nations with that still have higher union membership
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: rates experiencing faster wage growth than the United States has
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: been with declining union membership, or has it been fairly
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: consistent worldwide? Well, I think on average you wouldn't really
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: find that UM, But I think if you look distributionally,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: their their wage distributions tend to be UM tighter, less
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: dispersed than ours, They have less wage inequality, less less
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: earnings dispersion UM, and in fact, in many cases, as
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: their unionization rates go down, they end up with more
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of that UM. An important early study found that about
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: a fifth of the increase in in wage dispersion, at
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: least among men, was attributed to the decline in unionization.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Now fifth may not sound like a ton, but that
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: was the largest factor that I think anyone's ever uncovered
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: in that in that research. Is it harder to organize
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: labor unions these days, or oh yes, yeah, is there
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: more apathy among workers or what is it? Well, I
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: don't know that there's more apathy among workers. And in fact,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: if you pull people depending on the question, you know,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: these surveys can be a little squirrelly. Many people will
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: say something to the effect of, we recognize that we
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: need some form of an organization to push back on
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: UM the kinds of things that our employers are trying
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: to do to us. Now. They might not like the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: word union, but that's a pretty consistent finding. I think
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: what's really different now is that there is a depocketed,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: multi billion dollar union avoidance industry, and you know, you'll
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: see stores like Walmart closed down a franchise somewhere if
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: they're worried that it's going to become unionized. So the UH,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the anti union initiatives taken by UM employers, not not all,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: by the way, but those who are particularly averse to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: UH to union membership UM have gotten a lot more aggressive.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I do think that workers probably think differently about unions
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: than they used to. I know there was a case
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: pretty recently, I think it was Volkswagen in maybe Tennessee,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: where the workers voted not to form a bargaining unit unit.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And I wonder if some of what was going on
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: there was a sense that the you know, the union
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to really help them all that much. Let's
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: drill down a little bit further into some of the
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: wage data you have. By all indicators a tight labor market.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: The retail sector is a major is a fairly significant
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: part of our employment. I think it's around fourteen fifteen
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: million people are employed in retail. Uh, they're fairly low paid. UH.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe the wage gains, at least in some of the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: recent data have been have been pretty flat. Would could
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: would they be potentially faster if there was more union
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: organization in that sector or do you think there are
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: other forces at play? I think that you'll find union
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: wages are higher, as I mentioned earlier, that there's a
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: premium there. Whether they're growing faster or not. UM, that's
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: probably a tougher call. I don't I don't know that
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I've seen so much of that in the data. So
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: probably more of a level story than a growth story.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, economists are scratching our heads over
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the the what we call the flatness of the Phillips curve,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: which is just a fancy way of saying the breakdown
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and the correlation between tight labor markets and price growth
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: and wage growth. Uh, whether you're looking at prices or wages,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you might expect there to be more uh growth when
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: you're you're down at an unemployment rate that's four point
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: four percent. But there are many explanations for that, by
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the way. One is that the federal reserves, at least
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: in terms of inflation or prices, has kind of locked
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: in everybody's heads that are going to target two percent
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: no matter what, so inflation is really quote well anchored.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Another is, of course, the bargaining power story that I've
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I've been talking about we've been discussing throughout our our conversation.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Uh and UH. Another is the bargaining power discussion that
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: we've been having uh throughout our conversation. UH. And then
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: there is kind of a sectual story, as you were suggesting, UM,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: there are sectors in our economy that are facing a
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: set of pressures they didn't face fourty or fifty years ago.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: For instance, our manufacturers are in much more of a
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: global competitive situation than they were back in those days
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: of you know, literally two and three percent unemployment rates
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: if you go back to the nineteen sixties. UM and so,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: uh what what While globalization has many upsides, no question,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: particularly in terms of the supply of resources, liquid supply
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: chains and all that, UM, for many workers, blue collar workers,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: production workers, workers and manufacturing, that kind of wage competition
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: has hurt them. M. That's become a very politically salient
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: effect in recent years. Need I say, Jared, In some
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: cases corporations are you for unions and not for the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: best reasons. I used to report in Mexico, and there's
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: a practice they're called protection contracts, which has become standard.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: It's basically an agreement between a company, in these case
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: automakers and an union that doesn't legitimately represent workers, UM,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: which agrees even years before they break ground on the plant,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: to keep wages really, really low. I'm wondering if you've
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: ever seen anything similar in the US, or basically if
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: you haven't, what's the bad side of unionizing. Yeah, I
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: think that those are these kind of basically management kind
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of puppet unions UM. And I don't know that we've
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: had so much of that in this country. We've certainly
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: seen that in UM countries without much of the kind
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: of more industrialized union base that got started here in
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: the in in the Great Depression, UH, and you know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: fought their way off and violently into a much more
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: solid part of the job market, at least until their
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: membership really started to erode back in the in the
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: eighties or so with the pat Co strike. But if
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: you go back to the days of early unionism and
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: to sit down strike at Flint in the nineteen thirties, UM,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: there was these were militant unions sometimes and militant management
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: by the way on the other side, and they were
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: fighting tooth and nail for UM what I'm calling bargaining power.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: But back then they would have very much have seen
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: as h pushing back on essentially a corrupt system that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: wasn't affording them the UH the pay that they believe
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: they deserved. So we we have to my knowledge, and
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I must say that I haven't focused on this as much,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: especially as unionization rates have gotten so low, But we
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: haven't had the kind of company union so much here
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: that you're describing in Mexico, Jared. When we originally were
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: coming up with the idea for this topic on this podcast,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: we were looking at the the Hollywood writers, the TV writers,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and they were threatening to go on strike, and we
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: were going to do a show about how they were
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: on strike and what that says about the economy. And
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: in fact, at the very last minute, they reached a
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: settlement with the studios and and got some uh what
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: what seemed like some some decent pay increases or benefit
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: or benefits from that deal. And also a year ago
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: we had this big Verizon strike and even though both
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: sides claimed victory, there was some indication that that this
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: strike was able to get some benefits for for the
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Verizon workers that maybe they wouldn't have had if they
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: weren't able to get organized. Now, putting these events together,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: are these two things representative of what unions can still
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: do in the economy or they really kind of the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: exception to the rule when it comes to workers bargaining
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: power these days, more the exception than the rule. Uh. Interestingly,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I think the way people in the union movement are
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: starting to think about the way forward. And remember, we
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: talked about a seven percent unionization rate in the private sector,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and that's as we've been saying, that's a multi decade trend.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: And those kinds of trends are hard to turn around.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So folks are trying to think outside the box, and
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: they're thinking less about well, actually, in a way, it's
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: it's less about the kind of the Brizon model and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: more the writer's model. That is, UH, instead of thinking
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: about organizing an industry, organizing a sector, organizing fast food,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: or organizing retail, they're thinking about how they can organize
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: place by place. Now, this would take a change in
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: labor law, UM, and so you're not going to see
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that from this administration. But the idea is that especially
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: with a more sort of what some people call the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the fisher economy or the gig economy, the the W
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: two economy, the idea that you're working maybe less for
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: a particular employer, there's more UM of self employment, UH,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: independent contracting, things like that. UM. With with with those
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: kinds of developments going on, UM, people are starting to
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: think more about trying to form unions at a particular
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: restaurant versus UH the restaurant industry. UM that that if
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: they're able to pull that off, that may may give
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: them some uh may give them some success. So Jerry,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: we definitely have a tight labor market. We saw a
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: high number of openings and quits this morning. So with
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: or without unions, what's it gonna take for us to
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: see higher wages in the US? Well, I think the
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: wage story is a really interesting one. Um. Uh. Wages
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: have accelerated, as I'm sure you know, if you go back,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: uh a year and a half or so, wages we're
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: growing two percent year over year nominal. Uh. Now they're
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: growing somewhere between two point five and three percent. I
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: have an index that I put together which takes five
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: different series and smashes it together in some sort of
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: sophisticated waiting way. Um, and uh, it's it's growing. It
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: was growing two percent, now it's growing two point eight percent. Um.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: So we're getting some some uh bump. But the thing
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: that's got me nervous now, and this is only a
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: few months so these numbers, as you know, are jumpy,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: is that if you look at the blue collar wage
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: or the wage of non managers and services, so of
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the workforce that's not in the that that's that's in
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: those categories. Um, they went from two to two point
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: five and they've just been sitting at two point five
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: for a number of months, even as the jobless rate
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: has come down. Now, if you look at the other
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: of the workforce with higher wages, they've started growing at
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: a pace that's closer to three or even north of three.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: And so I'm worried that there's this wage inequality problem evolving. Uh,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and I gotta be watching that. It's definitely a story
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: that we will will continue to follow here at Bloomberg
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and on Benchmark. Jared Bernstein, thank you so much for
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: being with us today. My pleasure Benchmark will be back
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: next week and until then, you can find us on
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: the Bloomberg terminal, Bloomberg dot com, or Bloomberg App, as
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: well as on Apple podcast, Pocketcast, Stitcher, or wherever you
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: might enjoy listening to podcasts. While you're there, take a
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: minute to rate and review the show so more listeners
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: can find us and let us know what you thought
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: of the show. You can follow me on Twitter at
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: at Scott Landman Patty you are at Patty Lea, and
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: our guest Jared Bernstein is at at icon. Jared Benchmark
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: is produced by Sarah Patterson. The head of Bloomberg Podcast
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: is Alec McKay. Thanks for listening to you. Next time,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: n