Is It News That Middle Class Salaries Are Stagnating?

Apparently only the Los Angeles Times seems to think so -- and the handful of news outlets that picked up the multi-sourced story:

Wage stagnation, long the bane of blue-collar workers, is now hitting people with bachelor's degrees for the first time in 30 years. Earnings for workers with four-year degrees fell 5.2% from 2000 to 2004 when adjusted for inflation, according to White House economists.

It is a remarkable setback for workers who thought they were well-positioned to win some of the benefits of the nation's economic growth, and it may help explain why surveys show that many Americans think President Bush has not managed the economy well.

Not since the 1970s have workers with bachelor's degrees seen a prolonged slump in earnings during a time of economic growth. These workers did well during the last period of economic growth, 1995 to 2000, with inflation-adjusted average wages rising 12%, according to an analysis by the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

The initial hook for the story is the 2006 Economic Report of the President (click here if you want the entire 401-page pdf), which reports a booming economy. "[The president's] advisors say it is a good sign that productivity is increasing, because a rise in wages tends to follow" (emphasis added). Other economists dispute that, saying "wage stagnation could become a permanent fixture for most people with four-year degrees.... because of the increasing globalization of the labor market."

The LAT has done a good job personalizing the statistics to make for an interesting story, but this one goes way beyond local implications, folks. It's a topic that all "news" outlets should try to grapple with when reporting the latest poll or study on the US economy.

FWIW: The situation is just as dismal for newspaper reporters and editors -- who generally need at least a four-year degree -- according to the 2006 Newspaper Industry Compensation Survey conducted by the Inland Press Association. The Editor & Publisher story reports that "average entry-level salary last year for the 521 dailies participating in the study is up 17.3% from 2001, but is still a humble $29,048, or $558.62 a week. They'd be better off moving to the classified department, where the average salary for an inside sales rep last year was $36,077."