Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Washington Post Edition)

Ummm... No. Real wages for low-paid workers aren't rising at all. It's not the well-paid benefit "most." It's that only the well-paid are, as a group, benefitting at all:

Well-Paid Benefit Most As Economy Flourishes: Well-Paid Benefit Most As Economy Flourishes: Trend Is Pronounced In Washington AreaBy Neil Irwin and Cecilia Kang: Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, July 10, 2006; A01: Wages are rising more than twice as fast for highly paid workers in the Washington area as they are for low-paid workers, an analysis of federal data by The Washington Post shows.

That means the spoils of the region's economic expansion are going disproportionately to workers who are already well-paid, widening a gap between rich and poor in a place where it is already wider than in most of the country.

Businesspeople cite shifts in the world economy that give educated workers leverage to negotiate for higher wages but make low-paid workers replaceable -- a disparity that is especially pronounced in a service economy like Washington's.

The region's economy is strong and businesses are expanding, hiring more software engineers, financial analysts, salespeople and other skilled workers, thus bidding up their pay. But companies are simultaneously finding ways to automate clerical tasks, move call centers to cheaper places and handle business online, weakening demand for less-skilled workers.

Consider Focuspoint Inc., a company in Manassas that sells recorded messages for companies to play when callers are on hold. Three years ago, two order clerks frantically juggled calls and faxes from several hundred clients placing orders. Now the company has 1,700 clients and is expanding its sales and other high-level staff but still has just those two clerks -- who now sit quietly overseeing Internet orders.

"Three years ago, we would have had to hire more people to handle all our new clients," said Joe Martin, a vice president. "Now, we rely on new technology to pick up that work."

Such innovations help explain why, from 2003 to 2005, the average wage for people in the lowest pay bracket, with salaries around $20,000, rose only 5.4 percent in the Washington region -- not enough to keep up with rising prices. For the jobs that pay around $60,000, salaries rose 12.4 percent, well ahead of the 6.8 percent inflation in that period.

Comments

[Matt Rognlie]

Umm... well, normally I love these entries, but I don't see what's so outrageous about this article. It notes that low-paid workers have experienced increases in pay that fail to keep up with inflation. If I had been writing it, I probably would have used the real, inflation-adjusted wage figures from the beginning, but the Post's decision not to do so doesn't place very high in the barrage of bad media decisions that we're seeing.

[John Emerson]

"Businesspeople cite shifts in the world economy that give educated workers leverage to negotiate for higher wages but make low-paid workers replaceable."

A great mystery indeed. What are these shifts? We know that outsourcing or immigration can't be among them. Perhaps Saturn moved into Aquarius during a sunspot flareup.

[a different chris]

>a disparity that is especially pronounced in a service economy like Washington's

Uh, globalization's effects are especially pronunced in a *manufacturing* economy, as they can build your widget anywhere but somebody has to physically show up to clean your home.

"Businesspeople", I'm afraid, will just spew any groupthink shit that comes to mind when you ask them questions like that.

Anyway, doesn't Washington's booming growth completely flummox the "low tax, low government is the only way an economy can thrive" spinsters?

[Don Quijote]

But companies are simultaneously finding ways to automate clerical tasks, move call centers to cheaper places and handle business online, weakening demand for less-skilled workers.

And when they can't do any of the above, companies employ emigrants, preferably undocumented ones, who in turn will have no effect on wages since it is well known facts that illegal immigration has no effect on the wages of the natives.

[Eddie]

Matt,
I think the point is that the headline suggests that the economy is spreading its largess to all, but that the well-off are getting most of it. But in reading the article the headline should say that only the well-off are receiving any benefits from the 'booming' economy while the poor are getting screwed.

[Barry]

Matt, you alredy admit that you saw the problem - that real wages are stagnant or declining. That means that the headline was false. It's not a case of who's getting the most, but of who's getting and who's not getting/losing.

[ob]

Aren't headlines written by the editors? A friend who was a local writer didn't get to do his own headlines, but maybe the national's behave differently.

[John Emerson]

My understanding that not only the headlines, but the first and last paragraph are written by editors, and sometimes some in between.

If the most interesting part of the story is buried 2/3 of the way through, or if a dynamite story appears on B16, that's the editors at work.

But the Cossacks do work for the czars (Sulzberger and Graham).

[WaPoCritic]

In the birdcage liner version of the Post, delivered to my door in "I've-Got-No-Congressman-To-Write-To" DC there was a very nice graphic which had the relative increases *and* the inflation rate reference line. Headlines are a big problem at the Post where they seem to run more rightward than the articles.

Bottom line, the headline was crappy, but the story did, in fact, highlight that the only folks doing well in the current environment are the higher paid workers. Not *real strong* analysis, but better than AP quality.