As healthcare co-payments rise, labor productivity drops as, unsurprisingly, employees buy fewer prescription drugs. For example, employees with chronic pain had 76.7 hours absent from work. But, for every $5 rise in their co-payment, absenteeism increased 1.3% to 3.1%, or about five workdays per year. With average hourly earnings of $31/hour fully loaded, the increase in absenteeism costs employers $1,240, offsetting much of any employer savings.
Tag Archives: wages
Private Sector adds 200K+ Jobs
For the 1st time in 5 years the private-sector added more than 200K jobs for 2 months in a row. That’s great news! The bad news is that if you have a job wages haven’t kept up with the rising cost of living. Average hourly wages actually fell in March — from $19.32 to $19.30. Since Nov, average hourly wages have been growing at less than 1% per year while consumer prices are up at a 4.6% rate.
Falling Income
In Feb there was no rise in average weekly wages, but there was a 0.5% inflation in consumer prices meaning that real incomes fell by 0.5%. They have now fallen in 5 of the last 6 months during with time it has shrunk by 2.3%. Thus, the anemic job growth we are experiencing is barely keeping total real income for the economy flat.
WI Musings…
Unions are a way for suppliers of a particular service (firemen, policemen, teachers) to legally collude with respect to wages, vacations, holidays, pensions, healthcare and so on. It would be akin to cell phone companies agreeing to fix prices, service quality and band width. The worst service comes when there is no competition! Cable guy, where are you???