Sanders decries flat earnings for most workers

BY NIV ELIS - 04/11/18 05:30 PM EDT

Excerpt:

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday decried a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that most workers in the U.S. have not seen their wages increase over the last year.

“One of the issues that concerns me is what we are seeing happening to working families all across this country,” Sanders said during a congressional hearing on the U.S. economy and budget outlet.

“The average worker in America has seen zero — zero — wage growth over the past year, after adjusting for inflation,” he said, citing the bureau's report.

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, average weekly earnings increased by 0.9 percent from March 2017 to March 2018.

However, for roughly 80 percent of workers — those categorized by in the report as production and nonsupervisory employees — the increase in average weekly earnings totaled only .3 percent over the last year. The boost came from a slight increase in the number of hours worked each week, a positive sign for underemployed workers.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/382747-sanders-decries-flat-earnings-for-most-workers