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Economic Report

By Doug Cunningham

Real median worker wages are down two percent since 2003. For the first quarter of this year wages and salaries amounted to 45 percent of Gross Domestic Product, a decline of nearly five percent from 2001. According to the New York Times, economists at Goldman Sachs say that the most important contributor to higher profits over the past five years has been labor’s declining share of national income. The Economic Policy Institute says that what these declining real wages comes down to is the lack of bargaining power for many workers to be able to claim their fair share of economic growth.