NEW YORK (AP) -- This Labor Day finds workers in worse shape than they've been in years, according to a scorecard released Monday by Rutgers University....

The Rutgers labor scorecard offered other sobering findings:

# About 530,000 were subject to mass layoffs in the last year, growth of nearly 5 percent, but a lower rate than five and 10 years ago.

# The median weekly earnings for American workers have not grown in real terms over the last eight years.

# At $6.55, the federal minimum wage is worth 40 cents less per hour, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was a decade ago.

# While employer-assisted childcare and employee wellness programs have grown quickly over the last decade, they still cover less than one quarter of American workers.

# Roughly 4 percent of the workforce wants to work full-time, but is working part time because they can't find full-time work.

Of course we, the working class, knew this all along.




http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/01/workers.r...t.ap/index.html

Of course we, the working class, knew this all along.

The last statistic is a sobering reminder of the growing underemployment problem in this country, which does not get counted in statistics of unemployment.

BTW, I'll bet that 4% figure undercounts, because the underemployed under-report their status.

A growing number of workers are working without benefits, pensions, or job security since they work part time, not because they want to, but because they have to.