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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: 202/219-8211.
The American jobs machine continues to hum despite a one-
month uptick in the unemployment rate. The national unemployment rate is now a
full percentage point lower than it was in January 1994. And last month the
economy added 166,000 new private-sector jobs -- including 39,000 in
manufacturing and 27,000 in construction. The trend of stable, solid job growth
continues.
Yet the wages and living standards of ordinary Americans
are rising far more slowly than we've come to expect in a recovery. The
Employment Cost Index released earlier this week showed that last year, average
wages (holding occupation and industry mix constant) barely kept pace with
inflation even as company profits and the overall economy expanded. Moreover,
the average wages of production and nonsupervisory workers grew only 2.7
percent in the last 12 months even with a seven-cents-per-hour increase in
January.
In addition, a higher portion of working families is
living in poverty. In the mid-1970s, about 7.5 percent of working families
remained under the poverty line. In the mid-1980s, that portion grew to about
9.5 percent. And now, in the mid-1990s, some 11.5 percent of families working
hard and playing by the rules still are trapped in poverty. We've fallen behind
in our national goal to make work pay.
That's why the President is calling for an increase in the
minimum wage. And that's why equipping all Americans with the education and job
training to make their way in the new economy is the President's top priority
now that the jobs recovery is on track.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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