Oil and gas boom feeds greatest real wage growth in U.S., but will it last?
Most of the biggest inflation-adjusted wage gains have occurred in metro areas that have directly benefited from the boom in U.S. oil and gas production
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Most of the biggest inflation-adjusted wage gains have occurred in metro areas that have directly benefited from the boom in U.S. oil and gas production
in terms of income status, the past four decades have been very good to people working in financial and natural-resources industries or as executives and managers, but not so good for sales workers or people in blue-collar manufacturing jobs.
As a whole, Latin America enjoyed solid economic growth in the first decade of this century, with a fall in poverty, a decrease in income inequality and a rise of its middle class.
The first decade of this century witnessed an historic reduction in global poverty and a near doubling of the number of people who could be considered middle income. But the emergence of a truly global middle class is still far from fruition.
During the first decade of this century, the world experienced a dramatic drop in the number of people living in poverty and a significant rise in the number who could be considered middle income, but the majority of the global population remains low income.
China and India both succeeded in slashing poverty from 2001 to 2011. But while that contributed to a rapidly growing middle class in China, it did little to increase the number of Indians who could be considered middle income.
The share of Americans who live in middle-income households has held steady since 2010 – a flat trend that might actually be good news.
The gap between America’s upper-income and middle-income families has reached its highest level on record. In 2013, the median wealth of the nation’s upper-income families ($639,400) was nearly seven times the median wealth of middle-income families ($96,500).
Proposed new overtime rules would make nearly 5 million white-collar workers eligible for time-and-a-half – mostly retail and food service managers, office administrators, low-level financial workers and other modestly paid managers and office professionals.
Today about as many Americans identify themselves as lower or lower-middle class (40%) as say they are in the middle class (44%).
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