Working Class Secures Largest Wage Hikes Thanks to Tight Labor Market

“A strong labor market makes the bargaining power of lower-paid workers more like the labor market higher-wage workers experience during good times and bad,” Indeed.com economist Nick Bunker told the Wall Street Journal.

Overall wage growth year-to-year stands at about 3.6 percent. When broken down by industry, Americans in construction, mining, finance, hospitality, and manufacturing are all enjoying some of the highest wage growth in the country.

Americans in finance, for instance, secured 4.1 percent wage growth year-to-year, while those in the construction and mining industry — where Americans are most likely to compete against lower-wage illegal aliens — have secured four percent wage growth. Manufacturing workers, as well, have gotten a four percent wage hike year-to-year.

For the first year in decades, the U.S. economy has tipped toward American workers rather than employers in terms of the labor market. Today, due to less foreign competition, workers have more chances to seek out the highest-paying job. For decades, it was employers who would bid on workers.

President of the Mooyah Burgers restaurant chain, Tony Darden, told the Wall Street Journal that the tightening of the labor market has forced wages up for his employees:

“The effective labor pool is smaller than what it has been in the past,” said Tony Darden, Mooyah’s president. “As you look to bring on folks, ultimately higher wages are used to attract them.” [Emphasis added]

Experts, though, have warned that huge surges in illegal immigration — and increased legal immigration levels — can quickly diminish wage gains for America’s working and middle class.

Despite calls for more foreign workers from corporate interests and the big business lobby, there remain about 11.5 million Americans who are either unemployed, underemployed, or out of the labor market – all of whom want good-paying full-time jobs.

Story cited here.

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