Average Industrial Wage

Categories: Econ

This economic statistic measures hourly wages, though it doesn’t include farmers (hence, the word "industrial" in the name). It focuses on a specific geographic area. The average industrial wage works as a proxy for hourly rates in country...which why it matters.

Employers, and labor unions, like to calculate the average industrial wage (rate per hour) in a specific geographic area for a particular industry. The companies can see if they are overpaying or underpaying as compared to the competition. Meanwhile, labor unions can use the information for bargaining power.

Farm employees are usually excluded from the calculation in order to not skew the results.

You can save yourself some time by looking on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website, which lists the average industrial wage, unemployment rates, value of benefits received, who is on strike, and productivity rates on a national, state or local level. The data is further categorized by industry, age group and other demographics. The average industrial wage can then be compared to the local rate of inflation. This will indicate if real wages are increasing.

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Finance: Who benefits from unions?11 Views

00:00

Finance allah shmoop who benefits from unions And while union

00:07

workers duh Maybe a better question is who doesn't benefit

00:11

from unions Well okay okay Union workers exist because workers

00:16

were abused at different points in our country's history Ever

00:20

read the grapes of wrath Yeah Joad family Peach picking

00:23

for like five bucks a day or less And then

00:26

there's norma rae great film should see it won the

00:28

academy award and remember the speech You love me You

00:31

love me That union in a cotton fabric mill lots

00:36

of abuse there So yes unions exist in reaction to

00:39

bad acting on the part of the man and they

00:42

collectively bargain against the man on behalf of the workers

00:47

who belong And they made the country a whole lot

00:50

more fair and square So thankyou unions for that Historically

00:53

well guess what time moved forward and corporations today frequently

00:58

don't want to deal with unions They dictated salaries and

01:01

benefits as they saw fit and well the workers pushed

01:05

back Union's got uppity and then corporations got down ity

01:10

all right And the result was that all whole bunch

01:12

of unionized shops were forced to hire a lot more

01:15

Workers than they really needed That is that the man

01:19

was required to hire thirty seven people instead of the

01:21

twenty three he actually needed And the work rules that

01:24

originally were intended to protect made it hard to train

01:28

and to fire like really talented people did not want

01:31

to be paid like the average joe with the same

01:33

career path But really untalented people loved the fact that

01:37

it was hard to get fired inside of a union

01:39

So you got all kinds conflict inside of the union

01:42

as well Got it And you know the firing thing

01:45

ever been to a d m v car place that

01:47

we get your license Wake up They're still all right

01:50

Well let's Talk to a now bankrupt newspaper company who

01:53

couldn't downsized fast enough to accommodate the assault of the

01:57

lower margin internet delivered competitors Local newspapers were highly unionized

02:02

at the time in the nineties and union rules would

02:04

not let them fire workers fast enough And then the

02:08

industry revenue model changed really fast Newspapers could not absorb

02:12

the cost changes fast enough They couldn't fire people So

02:16

they all went bankrupt And then all the workers were

02:19

out of jobs and everyone ended up being out of

02:21

work Yeah well that was a fail on the unions

02:23

part They didn't move quick enough So who doesn't benefit

02:26

from unions Well the largest union in the country the

02:30

u s government Our own g men have the largest

02:33

set of union workers in the country and they cost

02:36

taxpayers of fortune They can almost never be fired They

02:40

have spectacularly expensive benefits and the real salaries If you

02:44

do fair math are actually very high Taxpayers pay for

02:48

government unions Often the union worker has a way better

02:52

deal than the taxpayer him or herself who supports that

02:55

union worker Yet taxpayers keep voting in raises and benefits

02:59

and all kinds of rules that let the government higher

03:02

Thirty seven people for jobs that really only need fourteen

03:05

We can't figure out the rationale there either maybe the

03:08

taxpayer someday you'll wise up Police officer works thirty years

03:16

on the force from age twenty two Two fifty two

03:19

not darth vader Kind different force She can then retire

03:22

and make eighty five percent of what her average pay

03:25

wass for her last three years And of course in

03:29

those last three years she does massive overtime and extra

03:32

work toe goose up her eventual hundred seventy five grand

03:35

a year Pay Ask your folks how they feel about

03:38

a cop making one hundred seventy five grand in a

03:40

year All right well she then retires but for the

03:43

remaining thirty years that she'll live she'll get one hundred

03:46

seventy five grand a year That's her pension that's what

03:49

cops get in california Welcome to the left state here

03:53

So she might claim that she quote on ly unquote

03:56

made one hundred seventy five grand We think that's a

03:59

lot for cops getting cats out of trees But in

04:01

fact for the thirty years she worked she actually cost

04:04

the taxpayers something like double that amount plus benefits So

04:08

it isn't that joe taxpayer doesn't believe the officer has

04:12

worked really hard The question remains Does that person deserve

04:16

so much better pay And retirement and benefits and all

04:20

the other stuff then joe taxpayer who's funding her well

04:24

Police have a great union and jury's still out on

04:26

a lot of these questions But you know what they

04:28

say It's the government office who writes all the checks

04:31

Unions can't live with them Yeah that's it We're done 00:04:34.238 --> [endTime] that that's where they stopped the conversation

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