the DON JONES INDEX… |
|||
|
GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED 9/10/22... 14,903.37 9/3/22... 14,907.62 |
||
6/27/13… 15,000.00 |
|||
(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 9/10/22…
32,151.71; 9/3/22… 31,318.44; 6/27/13…
15,000.00) |
|||
LESSON for September 10, 2022 – “LABOUR’S LOVE LOST (and found?)!”
labor
Day has come and passed – now who’s the biggest fool at last?
President Joe? He had no choice of commanding words, if not
deeds, to puff himself up with a homilistic State of the
Money address (See Attachment One) and some slightly homicidal speeches in
Milwaukee and Pittsburgh for the holiday insinuating the his friends in the
Republican Party were... well... semi–fascists, hence deserving of a perhaps
“lite” version of the sort of justice that America dealt out to Hitler and Tojo and Mussolini.
His pre-Elizabethian
ebullience was bolstered by intelligence from Pete Buttigieg that boosted and buttrussed the President’s policies; by new British PM Liz
Truss’s accession and benediction by QE2 who then died on the following day,
leaving the U.K. (and the world) in the grasp of King Charles the Third – his
dubious provenance and consort (not Queen, pointedly) Camilla, and his
commitment to environmentalism and the war on climate change.
Climate change, in fact, comprises half
the meat in the steak and kidney pie that was Biden’s Inflation Reduction
Act... the other half being a prospective lowering of prescription drug
prices. (The actual inflection on
inflation was, in fact, miniscule – but poll after poll after poll showed that
Don Jones will be voicing his choices in November based on prices at the pump
and in the salty snacks aisle at the local supermarket, so... IRA it became,
was, is and will be.)
Along with the polls came the stats...
like the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics reckonings (such as we faithrully reproduce every month so in our Index below)...
which Second Quarter findings found that wages were up by 1.4 percent but down
3.5 percent once calculated for inflation. (See Attachment Two) These numbers clearly have credence because
of the fact that the reporting network, CNN, solicited an Actual Harvard
Graduate to pronounce the provenances and parameters the paperwork.
Much publicized of late, including within our Lesson of last
week, has been the post-plague phenomenon of “the Great Resignation” (or, to
the employer class and their sympathizers, “quiet quitting”). The common grounding to both the corporate
and labor partisans here, in the U.K., E.U. and not even disincluding
outliers like China has been, of course, that wages have not kept up with
inflation despite a few noble and notable exceptions and, moreover, employees
are gauging the increase in working hours, speedups and intuiting a general
sense of disrespect emanating from the boss’ office and are becoming less and
less productive... sometimes to the point where some are doing a “bare minimum”
at their tasks to shift the burden on to management as to whether to lose (or,
in most cases, make a little less) money or to fire the miscreants amidst an
easing but still potent worker shortage.
A comparable, but dissenting view... emanating from the
formerly quiescent but not nascent labor movement... is that, instead of quiet
quitting to ameliorate falling real wages, rising hours and systemic
disrespect, the damned and the disgruntled should go back to the past and join
or form unions. And, in fact, some are
doing just that – the latest strike-promoting strife is at the freight rail
tracks and depots, where workers are poised to walk off the job. Don Jones can’t really begrudge the small
passthrough on consumables any settlement will cost, but if a strike does occur
and does last, the supply chain will rust even more and perhaps snap
altogether, inflation will soar, empty shelves manifest and living standards
will fall even further.
Somebody... probably in China... sat under a tree, drinking
tea and pronouncing Wise Sayings like: “If you receive what you wish for, you
may regret it.” Or words to that effect.
A Third
View... neither corporate nor cowardly and caviling quiet-quitting wage slave
induced... has been promulgated by this Index, the CNC and 2024 campaigns of
Jack “Catfish Parnell and Austin Tillerman – gumment
acknowledgment of the different status between paid work or enterprise that
produces useful things as people want to buy as opposed to the financial
chicanery (rents, banking shenanigans, hedge funds, crypto etc.) that has so
many parasites climbing to the stars atop the groaning backs of those still on
the bottom of America’s pickle barrel.
This
Lesson will be updated Tuesday or Wednesday when the Federal Reserve announces
whether or not they will raise interest rates, by how much, and upon whom the “pain”
will fall.
|
September 3rd – September 9th,
2022 |
|
Saturday, September 3, 2022 Dow:
31,318.44 |
It’s National Cinema Day. In the face of declining box offices and theatrical
bankruptcies, Hollywood resorts to gimmicks... today, for example, all shows
at all theatres (matinees and midnight specials included) will charge a
pre-pandemic, pre-inflation ticket price of $3.00. Unfortunately, the weak lineup of first run
movies fail to move behinds off their couches and into the metroplexes. Failure is, in
fact on the wind. Whether it’s relief
at the perceived lessening of the plague (it’s not but, with the new vaxxes and remedies at hand, fewer Joneses are being
hospitalized or buried), air travel is back up, but with a rotted out,
decaying infrastructure, surly passengers and flight attendants and a pilot
strike, getting where you’re going is getting harder. And the big,
big rockets are failing even more egregiously than the smaller jets...
Artemis (scheduled to lift off at 2 PM, the height of college football’s
Opening Day) fails again for more or less the same reason... leaking
hydrogen. They’ll try again later in
the month, or maybe in October.
Halloween? Day of the
Dead? The ever-ebulliant
Bill Nelson assures America that the outcome was only the second worst
possibility... trailing an attempted launch and explosion on the pad or loss
of control that sent the mission adrift in the cosmos. There’s bad
news on the legal front for former President Trump; good news, though, for
former President Obama – he wins an Emmy for narrating a nature documentary. |
|
Sunday,
September 4th, 2022 Dow: Closed |
Nature... uh, that is also
problematical, if not downright hostile.
The usual suspects in the West are arrayed... triple digit heat
indices, high winds, wildfires... and add to that flooding rains in the East Punday Sundit spectaculars poke and prod at the corpse of Djonald Unelected’s Mar-a-Lago
fistful of secret documents while the usual suspects mouth the usual partisan
pablum. A women’s groupie contends
that the Roe decision has turned November’s Red Tide into a Purple Haze. Djonald’s own
“Bikers for Trump (and Dr. Oz!”) rally elicits promises of pardons for
everybody and Washington’s Little Macs (McCarthy and McConnell) join the
chorus wailing that the One Six Inquisition is... go figure!... a witch
hunt. Everybody has kind words for
Ukraine’s Zelensky but... asked if America will
move to designate Russia a sponsor of state terrorism, President Joe scowls
“No!” Free enterprise steps in where government
fails... Dolly Parton introduces her signature line of clothes for canines,
dubbed... what else?... “Doggy Parton.” |
|
Monday,
September 5th, 2022 Dow:
Closed |
And... it’s Labor
Day. (See above for details) In exclusive interview, Zelensky reiterates his desire for Russia to be
designated a sponsor of State Terrism and deckares that there will be no cease fire negotiation
because... a sponsor of state terrorism... Russia is beyond the reach of
reason so “no deals!” Independent contractors deal independently
as mass stabbings transpire in... of all places!..
Canada. Ten are killed. Ten more die in Puget Sound naval disaster,
ten more shot in an Ohio bar. The Index says bye bye
BoJo... Thatcher wannabe Liz Truss is sworn as
England’s new PM by QE2 in her castle in Scotland and Brits sing “Na Na Hey Hey, Goodbye!” to BoJo. Further
south, in Wembley Stadium, the Foo Fighters hold a memorial concert for dead
drummer Taylor Hawkins with oodles of celebrities: aging rock icons like AC
DC, Rush and (without Freddie Mercury) Queen, even Sir Paul. A good time is had by all including Scots
author J. K. Rowling, a friend of the Queen (the monarch not the band) – see here. |
|
Tuesday, September 6th, 2022 Dow:
31,145.20 |
Labor Day over, it’s now
National Read-a-Book Day. Finally, there’s good
news for President Trump as Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge personally
appointed to the bench rules that he is, indeed, entitled to a Special
Master, (whips, chains, leather mask optional) and opines that he is “in a
league of his own.” Critics
cluck. Ol’ 45 rambles about bird cemetaries. President Zelenskyy interviewed by Gavin... check that, John...
Muir calls Russian regime “unacceptable” and says he will not negotiate. Putin, for his part, steps up shelling in
and around the Zaporizizha nuclear plant, worrying
U.N. inspectors and, running out of arms and ammos, buys more from NoKo and Iran. He
also jails a hostile journalist 22 years for “treason”. Southern California joins in the fire season with
big killer blaze in Hemet – thousands evacuated. Brownouts and blackouts
multiply and temperatures in Livermore hit 116°. |
|
Wednesday, September 7th, 2022 Dow:
31,584.28 |
It’s National Beer Day.
Also Disney day as fires in and around Anaheim menace the Magic
Kingdom. A cold beer would come in
handy to heatstroked Californios as the West
records 75 daily and 15 all time record highs. It’s so bad that they’re welcoming the approach of weird Hurrican Kay in the Pacific. Sad Vlad meets
Xi in Uzbekistan, make plans to conquer the world and he begs for arms and
money. Here, uninformed sources don’t
know, but speculate, who Trump’s pet judge will appoint as his Special
Master. Rudy? Ozzie? Crime waves reported lessened in New York,
but not California, which catches a killer cop or Memphis, where a cute white
jogger is kidnapped and murdered.
Suspect captured, just released on soft sentence for previous
atrocities, Up in Canada, one of the
two mass stabbers is found dead of mysterious causes, the other is captured,
then dies. Also mysteriously. |
|
Thursday, September 8th, 2022 Dow:
31,774.52 |
More Memphis blues again
– random shooter kills four, wounds more.
Just driving around. But the
FBI has a plan to stop crime... they put the owner of a porno website on
their Most Wanted List and Florida prostitution sting bags a cop. Dancing dancers are named by ABC... no
crazies in the crowd this year: contestants include Charlie’s
Cheryl Ladd, housewife Teresa Giudice, a mom and daughter TikTokTeam,
a drag queen and lots more actors. Apple releases iPhone 14. Privileged 14 year olds swarm to buy. But inflation is causing less money for pet
care, leading to cheap dogfood and abandonments. And there’s also a dog flu to accompany
bird flu. |
|
Friday, September 9th, 2022 Dow:
32,151.71 |
The world pays tribute to
QE2. Prince-become-King Charles III returns
with Queen Consort (not Queen) Camilla from Balmoral to London to address the
nation and world from Buckingham Palace.
He and Princess Anne were with the Queen at the end... grandsons
William and Harry arrived too late.
Prince Andrew was... somewhere.
There will be ten days of mourning but the actual coronation
is not expected to occur until the spring or summer of next year. World leaders, celebrities and tabloid
triflers pitch in their tuppence... Mark Phillips
of CBS says she was “Queen of the World”, author and “Royal Expert” Tina
Brown said she was “above politics” and “ready for Death”. Various foreigners hailed her as a “grand
and beautiful lady”, a “stateswoman of unmatched dignity” and even Vladimir
Putin recalled her rapport with “the ordinary people.” Sir Paul recalled her sense of humour and Sir Elton, in concert, dedicated “Don’t Let
the Sun Go Down on Me” to QE2. Former
US ambassador Jane Hartley cited “a woman from California” who said that the
Queen had been “our Queen, too.” |
|
The prospect of an inter-Britain Brexit-up
is looming as the colonials, who were mesmerized by the strong, yet decent
hand of QE2 now face an uncertain future under an uncertain King Charles
III. The consequent drop in the Don...
which would have been much larger over in London and the like amidst the Clives and the Nigels and the Colins... cancelled out a rising Dow, itself battered by
a Federal Reserve apparently following the wind as regards rate hikes; more
expected next week. The dance between
fighting inflation and succumbing to recession (or worse) is turning marathonical. |
|
CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000 (REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013) See a further explanation of categories here… ECONOMIC INDICES (60%) |
CATEGORY |
VALUE |
BASE |
RESULTS |
SCORE |
OUR SOURCES and
COMMENTS |
|
|||||||||
INCOME |
(24%) |
6/17/13 & 1/1/22 |
LAST |
CHANGE |
NEXT |
9/3/22 |
9/3/22 |
SOURCE |
|
||||||
Wages (hrly. per cap) |
9% |
1350
points |
9/3/22 |
+0.44% |
9/22 |
1,381.63 |
1,381.63 |
|
|||||||
Median Inc. (yearly) |
4% |
600 |
9/3/22 |
+0.03% |
9/17/22 |
603.76 |
603.79 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 36,010 |
|
||||||
Unempl. (BLS – in mi) |
4% |
600 |
9/3/22 |
-5.41% |
9/22 |
616.25 |
616.25 |
|
|||||||
Official (DC – in mi) |
2% |
300 |
9/3/22 |
-0.14% |
9/17/22 |
315.41 |
315.86 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 5,620 |
|
||||||
Unofficl. (DC – in mi) |
2% |
300 |
9/3/22 |
+0.03% |
9/17/22 |
286.31 |
286.22 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 11,829 |
|
||||||
Workforce Particip. Number Percent |
2% |
300 |
9/3/22 |
+0.007% -0.007% |
9/17/22 |
299.74 |
299.72 |
In 158,356 Out 100,157 Total: 258,513 |
|
||||||
WP % (ycharts)* |
1% |
150 |
9/3/22 |
+0.48% |
9/3/22 |
150.48 |
150.48 |
https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 62.40 |
|
||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
15% |
|
|
|
||||||||||||
Total Inflation |
7% |
1050 |
8/22 |
nc |
9/17/22 |
1010.64 |
1010.64 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.0
nc |
|
||||||
Food |
2% |
300 |
8/22 |
+1.1% |
9/17/22 |
289.34 |
286.15 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +1.1 |
|
||||||
Gasoline |
2% |
300 |
8/22 |
-7.7% |
9/17/22 |
221.46 |
238.50 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm -7.7 |
|
||||||
Medical Costs |
2% |
300 |
8/22 |
+0.4% |
9/17/22 |
293.45 |
292.28 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
+0.4 |
|
||||||
Shelter |
2% |
300 |
8/22 |
+0.5% |
9/17/22 |
293.46 |
291.99 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.5 |
|
||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
WEALTH |
6% |
|
|
|
|||||||||||
Dow Jones Index |
2% |
300 |
9/3/22 |
-2.66% |
9/17/22 |
260.91 |
267.85 |
https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/ 32,151.71 |
|
||||||
Home (Sales) (Valuation) |
1% 1% |
150 150 |
9/3/22 |
-6.05% -2.93% |
9/17/22 |
154.06 309.58 |
154.06 309.58 |
https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics Sales
(M): 4.81 Valuations (K): 403.8 |
|
||||||
Debt (Personal) |
2% |
300 |
9/3/22 |
+0.11% |
9/17/22 |
290.61 |
290.28 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 70,962 |
|
||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
NATIONAL |
(10%) |
|
|
|
|||||||||||
Revenue (trilns.) |
2% |
300 |
9/3/22 |
+0.18% |
9/17/22 |
325.19 |
325.77 |
debtclock.org/ 4,456 |
|
||||||
Expenditures (tr.) |
2% |
300 |
9/3/22 |
+0.30% |
9/17/22 |
331.13 |
332.14 |
debtclock.org/ 5,903 |
|
||||||
National Debt tr.) |
3% |
450 |
9/3/22 |
+0.05% |
9/17/22 |
441.66 |
441.43 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 30,879 |
|
||||||
Aggregate Debt (tr.) |
3% |
450 |
9/3/22 |
+0.16% |
9/17/22 |
437.51 |
436.83 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 92,572 |
|
||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||
GLOBAL |
(5%) |
|
|
|
|||||||||||
Foreign Debt (tr.) |
2% |
300 |
9/3/22 |
+0.03% |
9/17/22 |
325.47 |
325.58 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 7,413 |
|
||||||
Exports (in billions) |
1% |
150 |
9/3/22 |
+1.60% |
9/22 |
163.46 |
163.46 |
|
|||||||
Imports (bl.) |
1% |
150 |
9/3/22 |
+0.29% |
9/22 |
153.99 |
153.99 |
|
|||||||
Trade Deficit (bl.) |
1% |
150 |
9/3/22 |
-7.41% |
9/22 |
210.77 |
210.77 |
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 79.6 |
|
||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||
SOCIAL INDICES (40%) |
|
|
|
||||||||||||
ACTS of MAN |
12% |
|
|
|
|||||||||||
World Affairs |
3% |
450 |
9/3/22 |
-1.5% |
9/17/22 |
465.51 |
458.53 |
Beloved QE2 meets, greets new PM Liz
Truss, then dies, leaving the realm in the wobbly hands of Charles III as the
colonies plot revolt. (See above) Foo Fighters’ tribute to dead drummer
Hawkins at Wembley, UK draws 75K; guests include Sir Paul and JDs (juvenile
drummers). Putin and Xi meet in
Uzbekistan to plot world domination. |
|
||||||
Terrorism |
2% |
300 |
9/3/22 |
-0.2% |
9/17/22 |
296.60 |
296.01 |
Mass stabber brothers kill 10 on Canadian
Indian Reservation, both terrorists die mysteriously. Good show, Sgt. Preston! Ten more shot in Ohio by D. T.’s. |
|
||||||
Politics |
3% |
450 |
9/3/22 |
+0.2% |
9/17/22 |
466.45 |
467.38 |
Barack Obama returns to White House for
portrait unveiling that Trump denied – also wins Emmy for narration of a
nature film. Trump’s pet judge grants
him his Special Master, provoking his rambling rant on bird cemeteries. Who will it be now? Rudy?
Ozzie? Batman? BoJo gives his
own rambling speech, then just fades away to the strains of Steam. SC candidate proposes 75 year old age cap
for politicians. |
|
||||||
Economics |
3% |
450 |
9/3/22 |
+0.1% |
9/17/22 |
437.95 |
438.39 |
Travel up 10% on plague lessening and
gas prices dropping. Dolly launches
Doggie Parton animal apparel line. CFO
of Bed, Bath & Bankrupt “falls” from 18th floor window. UPS to hire 100K seasonal workers. |
|
||||||
Crime |
1% |
150 |
9/3/22 |
-0.7% |
9/17/22 |
287.91 |
285.89 |
Bad week for Memphis: affluent white
jogger kidnap-murdered by ex con on early release after previous killing,
then 4 more slain by shooter who videos his “exploits”. Bad week for Uvalde with gang
shootout. Bad week for Press -
politician stabs investigative reporter who investigated him to death in Vegas; Putin sentences hostile mediot to 22 years for “treason”. Two deputies killed by man who mistakenly
thought they were coming for him.
Tupelo man steals plane, flies around threatening to crash into WalMart then gives up and does the Jailhouse Rock. S.C. coach accused of hanky panky with cheerleaders. |
|
||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
ACTS of GOD |
(6%) |
|
|
|
|||||||||||
Environment/Weather |
3% |
450 |
9/3/22 |
+0.2% |
9/17/22 |
439.39 |
440.27 |
Western “Mosquito” is newest wildfire
as towns of Weed, NoCal and Hemet, SoCal evacuated
and exterminated while temps hit 114° in Fresno.
The rain goes to Midwest and Northeast floods. But relief may be in sight... pundits are
divided over whether King Charles III will continue his war on climate change. |
|
||||||
Disasters |
3% |
450 |
9/3/22 |
-0.4% |
9/17/22 |
442.71 |
440.94 |
SoCal fires also strike Anaheim,
menacing Disneyland. 6.8 EQ in
Szechuan, China kills 65. Floods sweep
migrants down the Rio Grande; 8 die, dozens missing. “Doomsday” glacier the size of Florida said
to be “disintegrating”. Man survives
11 days floating on a freezer in shark-infested waters. |
|
||||||
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX |
(15%) |
|
|
||||||||||||
Science, Tech, Educ. |
4% |
600 |
9/3/22 |
-0.3% |
9/17/22 |
618.52 |
616.66 |
U.N. calls weaponization of Zappo Nuke Plant “dangerous.” Artemis flops again - launch pushed back to
late September or October... or later, NASA’s Bill Nelson says at least it
didn’t blow up on the pad. |
|
||||||
Equality (econ/social) |
4% |
600 |
9/3/22 |
-0.1% |
9/17/22 |
591.01 |
590.42 |
Tx migrant kickout buses to Chicago,
unintended consequence find illegals (who survive flood crossing – above)
coming over for the free rides. |
|
||||||
Health |
4% |
600 |
9/3/22 |
-0.1% |
9/17/22 |
487.45 |
486.96 |
NYC public transit mask mandate
lifted. Doctors denounce the small
magnets kids eat and die from. St.
James salmon and Wendy’s lettuce recalled for metal shavings in the former
and... yes... salmonella in the greens. |
|
||||||
Freedom and Justice |
3% |
450 |
9/3/22 |
-0.2% |
9/17/22 |
451.29 |
450.39 |
Steve Bannon turns himself in for
defrauding MAGAnauts. All in all, his were just imaginary bricks
in the Wall. Church police fight back
as a Florida cop arrested in prostitution sting while the FBI grants Most Wanted
status to... a porn site operator.
Credit Karma accused of fraud, Juul pays
settlement – promises not to advertise to kids younger than 35 (who can’t run
for Pres.). |
|
||||||
MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX |
(7%) |
|
|
|
|||||||||||
Cultural incidents |
3% |
450 |
9/3/22 |
+0.1% |
9/17/22 |
465.15 |
465.62 |
Dancing dancers revealed... no Rudy,
no Spicer... most notorious include Charlie’s Cheryl Ladd, housewife Teresa Giudice, a mom and daughter TikTokTeam, a drag queen and lots more actors. Ozzie performs at NFL opening halftime but
not shown on TV in favor of commentators talking about themselves. RIP: CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, horror writer
Peter Straub and, of course, QE2. |
|
||||||
Misc. incidents |
4% |
450 |
9/3/22 |
+0.1% |
9/17/22 |
460.98 |
461.44 |
Struggling movie theaters offer $3
ticket day; many find the weak fall films not worth even that. Experts say playing board games like CandyLand and Monopoly will prevent juvenile
delinquency. Maybe not “Risk” -
Mar-a-Lago files said to include foreign nuclear spy data. Boy finds giant worm. |
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
The Don Jones Index for the week of
September 3rd through September 9th, 2022 was DOWN
4.25 points
The
Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired
Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell,
Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator.
The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well
as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell,
environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna
Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The
Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial
“Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties
promulgating this and/or other such slanders.
Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC
donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.
ATTACHMENT ONE – from the White House
ATTACHMENT
TWO – From CNN
WORKERS’ WAGES CONTINUE TO CLIMB, BUT NOT AS FAST AS
INFLATION
By Tami Luhby, CNN Updated 12:30 PM
EDT, Fri July 29, 2022
Employers continued hiking workers’ pay at a
brisker-than-expected pace, but the increases still weren’t enough to
compensate for the even faster rise in inflation.
Wages and salaries for civilian workers increased 1.4% in
the second quarter and 5.3% over the year ending in June, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Cost Index, released Friday. Both
measures show swifter
growth than in the first quarter.
The 12-month jump was the highest since the spring of 1983,
though the quarterly change did not surpass the 1.5% increase in the fall of
2021.
However, the picture is not as rosy once inflation is taken
into account. Wages and salaries declined 3.5% over the past year, after
adjusting for rising prices.
That’s just a touch better than the 3.6% drop for the year
ending in March, which was the largest decrease since the bureau began keeping
inflation-adjusted records in 2001.
The data shows that people are really falling behind, said
Jason Furman, an economics professor at Harvard University and former chair of
the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration.
“And they’re falling behind, not because wage growth is
slowing, but because price growth is so high,” Furman said. “And that’s a worrisome sign for the future.”
The super-tight labor market during the Covid-19 pandemic
has forced employers to increase their compensation to fill open positions and hold
on to their staff, though the raises aren’t keeping up with the cost of living.
This is adding to concerns about the duration and
pervasiveness of inflation.
The Employment Cost Index report is a favorite of the
Federal Reserve, which is closely monitoring the extent to which skyrocketing
inflation is boosting wages to help it determine how much to hike interest
rates. The US central bank on Wednesday approved
its second-straight three-quarters of a percentage point rate hike as
it tries to tamp down rising prices.
In a press conference Wednesday, Fed chair Jerome Powell
called the index “important” because of how it accounts for the composition of
the labor market.
The data tracks changes in employers’ labor costs for wages
and salaries, along with health, retirement and other benefits. The index is
not subject to the same distortions as other measures, such as average hourly
earnings, because it keeps the composition of the workforce constant.
Wage growth won’t abate until the labor market turns and
gets weaker, said Robert Fry, chief economist at his eponymous firm. Employers
have continued adding
jobs even as the economy
contracted in the second quarter.
“You need a higher unemployment rate and more slack there to
get wage increases back down,” said Fry, who expects to see price growth start
to slow before pay hikes do. Good! - DJI
Cost of benefits cools
Overall, the growth in employers’ compensation costs
moderated slightly in the second quarter, coming in at 1.3%, before accounting
for inflation. That compares to 1.4% in the first quarter but was still
slightly higher growth than economists expected.
However, over the course of the year ending in June, total
compensation costs jumped 5.1%, a quicker pace than the 4.5% increase for the
year ending in March.
The growth in benefits costs, which takes into account the
amount paid for retirement, health and other benefits, dipped to 1.2% for the
spring, compared to 1.8% in the prior quarter.
Benefits costs increased 4.8% over the most recent 12
months, compared to 4.1% over the year ending in March.
Looking ahead
The hotter-than-projected wage data, as well as a new 40-year
high in another key inflation measure released on Friday, means that the
Federal Reserve will most likely continue raising interest rates this year.
The Personal
Consumption Expenditures price index, which measures the change in
the prices of goods and services purchased by consumers, rose by 6.8% in June as
compared to the same period last year, according to data from the Bureau of
Economic Analysis.
“There was nothing in today’s reports that’s going to cause
the Fed to question whether they should keep tightening,” Fry said. “I’d lean
towards 75 basis
points the next time too, until we see some kind of break on
inflation, both wages and prices.”
ATTACHMENTS from 9/3/22
ATTACHMENT
ONE – from the New York Times
THE RISE OF THE WORKER PRODUCTIVITY
SCORE
Across industries and incomes, more employees are being tracked,
recorded and ranked. What is gained, companies say, is efficiency and
accountability. What is lost?
By Jodi Kantor and
Arya Sundaram
Produced by Aliza
Aufrichtig and Rumsey Taylor Aug. 14, 2022
A FEW YEARS AGO, Carol Kraemer, a longtime finance executive,
took a new job. Her title, senior vice president, was impressive. The
compensation was excellent: $200 an hour.
But her first paychecks
seemed low. Her new employer, which used extensive monitoring software on its
all-remote workers, paid them only for the minutes when the system detected
active work. Worse, Ms. Kraemer noticed that the software did not come close to
capturing her labor. Offline work — doing math problems on paper, reading
printouts, thinking — didn’t register and required approval as “manual time.”
In managing the organization’s finances, Ms. Kraemer oversaw more than a dozen
people, but mentoring them didn’t always leave a digital impression. If she
forgot to turn on her time tracker, she had to appeal to be paid at all.
“You’re supposed to be
a trusted member of your team, but there was never any trust that you were
working for the team,” she said.
Since the dawn of
modern offices, workers have orchestrated their actions by watching the clock.
Now, more and more, the clock is watching them.
IN LOWER-PAYING JOBS, the monitoring is already ubiquitous: not
just at Amazon,
where the second-by-second measurements became notorious, but also for Kroger
cashiers, UPS drivers and
millions of others. Eight of the 10 largest private U.S. employers track the
productivity metrics of individual workers, many in real time, according to an
examination by The New York Times.
Now digital
productivity monitoring is also spreading among white-collar jobs and roles
that require graduate degrees. Many employees, whether working remotely or in
person, are subject to trackers, scores, “idle” buttons, or just quiet,
constantly accumulating records. Pauses can lead to penalties, from lost pay to
lost jobs.
Some radiologists see
scoreboards showing their “inactivity” time and how their productivity stacks
up against their colleagues’. At companies including J.P. Morgan, tracking how
employees spend their days, from making phone calls to composing emails, has become
routine practice. In Britain, Barclays Bank scrapped prodding messages to
workers, like “Not enough time in the Zone yesterday,” after they caused an
uproar. At UnitedHealth Group, low keyboard activity can affect compensation
and sap bonuses. Public servants are tracked, too: In June, New York’s
Metropolitan Transportation Authority told engineers and other employees they
could work remotely one day a week if they agreed to full-time productivity
monitoring.
Architects, academic
administrators, doctors, nursing home workers and lawyers described
growing electronic surveillance over every minute of their workday. They echoed
complaints that employees in many lower-paid positions have voiced for years:
that their jobs are relentless, that they don’t have control — and in some
cases, that they don’t even have enough time to use the bathroom. In interviews
and in hundreds of written submissions to The Times, white-collar workers
described being tracked as “demoralizing,” “humiliating” and “toxic.”
Micromanagement is becoming standard, they said.
But the most urgent
complaint, spanning industries and incomes, is that the working world’s new
clocks are just wrong: inept at capturing offline activity, unreliable at
assessing hard-to-quantify tasks and prone to undermining the work itself.
UnitedHealth social
workers were marked idle for lack of keyboard activity while counseling
patients in drug treatment facilities, according to a former supervisor.
Grocery cashiers said the pressure to quickly scan items degraded customer
service, making it harder to be patient with elderly shoppers who move slowly.
Ms. Kraemer, the executive, said she sometimes resorted to doing “busywork that
is mindless” to accumulate clicks.
“We’re in this era of
measurement but we don’t know what we should be measuring,” said Ryan Fuller,
former vice president for workplace intelligence at Microsoft.
The metrics are even
applied to spiritual care for the dying. The Rev. Margo Richardson of
Minneapolis became a hospice chaplain to help patients wrestle with deep,
searching questions. “This is the big test for everyone: How am I going to face
my own death?” she said.
ALLINA HEALTHThe Rev.
Margo RichardsonHospice chaplainEach morning, Ms. Richardson
and her colleagues had to project how many “productivity points”
they would accumulate during the day’s work. But
death defied planning.Tamir Kalifa
for The New York Times
But two years ago, her
employer started requiring chaplains to accrue more of what it called
“productivity points.” A visit to the dying: as little as one point.
Participating in a funeral: one and three-quarters points. A phone call to
grieving relatives: one-quarter point.
As these practices
have spread, so has resistance to what labor advocates call one of the most
significant expansions of employer power in generations. TikTok videos offer tips on outsmarting the
systems, including with a “mouse jiggler,” a device
that creates the appearance of activity. (One popular model is called Liberty.)
Some of the most closely monitored employees in the country have become some of
the most restive — warehouse workers attempting to unionize, truckers forming
protest convoys.
But many employers,
along with makers of the tracking technology, say that even if the details need
refining, the practice has become valuable — and perhaps inevitable.
Tracking, they say,
allows them to manage with newfound clarity, fairness and insight. Derelict
workers can be rooted out. Industrious ones can be rewarded. “It’s a way to
really just focus on the results,” rather than impressions, said Marisa
Goldenberg, who ran a division of the company Ms. Kraemer joined, and said she
used the tools in moderation.
Some employers are
making a trade: “If we’re going to give up on bringing people back to the
office, we’re not going to give up on managing productivity,” said Paul Wartenberg, who installs monitoring systems for clients
including accounting firms and hospitals.
But in-person
workplaces have embraced the tools as well. Tommy Weir, whose company, Enaible, provides group productivity scores to Fortune 500
companies, aims to eventually use individual scores to calibrate pay. “The real
question,” he said, “is which companies are going to use it and when, and which
companies are going to become irrelevant?”
MS. KRAEMER, the finance executive, thought she had seen
it all. Years after working at Enron, the energy giant turned business blowup,
she and former colleagues still held reunions to commemorate what they had been
through. But she had never encountered anything like the practices of ESW
Capital, a Texas-based group of business software companies.
She and her co-workers
could turn off their trackers and take breaks anytime, as long as they hit 40
hours a week, which the company logged in 10-minute chunks. During each of
those intervals, at some moment they could never anticipate, cameras snapped
shots of their faces and screens, creating timecards to verify whether they
were working. Some bosses allowed a few “bad” timecards — showing interruptions,
or no digital activity — according to interviews with two dozen current and
former employees. Beyond that, any snapshot in which they had paused or
momentarily stepped away could cost them 10 minutes of pay. Sometimes those
cards were rejected; sometimes the workers, knowing the rules, didn’t submit
them at all.
While the tracker was
on, “you couldn’t choose those bathroom or coffee moments — you just had to
wing it,” she said.
Matthew Phillp lost
a freelance job after refusing to install Time Doctor, software that would have
taken screenshots of his work. He said he found it intrusive — and potentially
misleading, since he often works on paper.Sarah
Blesener for The New York Times
Though Ms. Kraemer
didn’t know it, that software had been created with a sense of promise about
the future of the workplace.
It was part of a bold
plan for streamlining and “redefining the way people work,” as one of the
creators put it.
Office settings were choked with unnecessary interruptions, they believed, and
constrained by geography from hiring the best talent worldwide. Smartphones and
their constant pings were a growing threat to concentration.
If technology could
optimize productivity, everyone would benefit, the executives said. The company
would accomplish more. Workers would perform better,
then log off to live their lives.
To carry out this vision,
ESW deployed a firm called Crossover, founded in 2014, to hire and manage
workers. Wages were high, and benefits sparse: Nearly everyone would be
contractors, using their own computers. The executives adapted an existing
tracker into WorkSmart, the software that placed Ms.
Kraemer and others under a dome of electronic supervision.
The system drew
adherents, because the productivity gains were remarkable. Goofing off was
excised. In interviews, former supervisors described having newfound powers of
near X-ray vision into what employees were doing other than working: watching
porn, playing video games, using bots to mimic typing, two-timing Crossover by
programming for other businesses, and subcontracting their assignments out to
lower-paid workers.
Other employees, they
said, became more efficient. “Once you see those metrics, those insights,
something changes: You realize how much you waste doing nothing, or just
multitasking and not accomplishing stuff,” said Federico Mazzoli,
a co-creator of WorkSmart. Some overseas workers said
the intrusions were worth the U.S. salaries that enabled them to buy homes or
start businesses.
But Ms. Kraemer, like
many of her colleagues, found that WorkSmart upended
ideas she had taken for granted: that she would have more freedom in her home
than at an office; that her M.B.A. and experience had earned her more say over
her time.
Workdays grew longer
for her and others, in part because offline work didn’t count, but also because
it was nearly impossible to work online with unwavering focus. Taking time to
mull or bantering with colleagues turned out to be necessary to both doing her
job and getting through the day, even if those moments went unpaid.
“You have to be in
front of your computer, in work mode, 55 or 60 hours just to get those 40 hours
counted and paid for,” Ms. Kraemer said. Though WorkSmart
allowed payment requests for offline work, employees said managers did not
always encourage them. (Executives from ESW and Crossover did not to repeated
requests for comment including written questions about whether any of these
practices have since been updated. But Crossover defends its practices on
its website,
saying that its “‘Fitbit’ of productivity” spurs
motivation, accountability and “remote freedoms.”)
Two years after
helping to build WorkSmart, Mr. Mazzoli
started using it. He became awash in anxiety and doubtful about its accuracy.
“Some days you were just moving the cursor around just for the sake of it,” he
said. The tool was powerful but dangerous, he concluded. (He left the company a
year later.)
Crossover’s reputation
as an employer began to slide, with online reviews that warned against working
there. The company heard so many complaints about the camera trained on each
worker that they removed it as a default feature, according to Mr. Mazzoli. Ms. Kraemer left ESW and sued Crossover
for unpaid wages for work that its system didn’t track. The case was settled
for an amount she is barred from disclosing.
But WorkSmart’s creators had adopted an idea that was going
mainstream. Human resources, once reliant on more subjective assessments, was
becoming more of an analytics business. Employers had always sought to
get the most out
of employees, and some fields had long recorded billable client hours, but this
was different. “The people data revolution, predicted for years, has finally
arrived,” proclaimed a 2018 Deloitte report.
Software makers
competed to deliver employee ratings, app-activity reports and color-coded
charts showing who was doing what. Even software that wasn’t designed for
productivity surveillance contributed to it. Microsoft Teams, introduced in
2017 and taken up by hundreds of millions of people, signaled which users were
“active” (green dot) or “away” (yellow). Salesforce, the leading marketing, sales
and customer service program, logged emails sent and phone calls made to
customers. At financial firms, monitoring software set up for compliance
reasons also served up insights on how employees spent their time.
Upwork, a freelance
marketplace now used by podcast producers, accountants and hundreds of
thousands of other skilled workers, offered a time-tracking feature similar to WorkSmart’s that took screenshots during every 10-minute
billing window. (This is no coincidence: The tracker that inspired WorkSmart is now part of Upwork.) Freelancers could try to
explain screenshots showing moments of inactivity, but as with WorkSmart, some said they submitted only the unblemished
ones, in effect forgoing pay for some of their labor.
The arrival of the
pandemic, spurring businesses to keep tabs on workers at home, hastened a shift
that was already underway. As more employers adopted the tools, more workers d
Ms. Kraemer’s experience: The software was warping the foundations of time and
trust in their work lives.
In the spring of 2020,
Patrick Baratta graduated from the University of
Virginia and began working remotely for AlphaBrook,
which provides research on government contracting. Soon the company began
gauging its workers’ productivity using a program called Monitask,
according to Mr. Baratta and several former
colleagues.
Once, he said, a
manager asked why his score had dropped during a particular 10-minute
increment. “Sometimes I have to use the bathroom,” he replied. (Matthew
Hastings, AlphaBrook’s founder and chief executive,
said the company “would never assess an employee over just 10 minutes of their
time.”) In interviews and written submissions to The Times, workers across a
variety of jobs — pharmaceutical assistants, insurance underwriters, employees
of e-commerce companies — also said productivity pressure had led to problems
with bathroom breaks.
Some companies that
adopted monitoring tools during the Covid-19 shutdown maintained them even
after returning to work in person. CoStar Group, a Washington-based real estate
data company where a friend of Mr. Baratta took a
job, continued keeping intricate records of how employees spend their time.
(One report viewed by The Times had over 20 entries in a single hour of an
employee’s day.) CoStar said that those numbers were not used as stand-alone
tools and that a better measurement was the monthly rankings of individual
employee output displayed on screens in the office.
Larger, more
established companies are taking similar steps. UnitedHealth Group has 350,000
employees, a perch high on the Fortune 500 list and annual revenues of hundreds
of billions of dollars. It also has strict systems for measuring “idle time”
that some employees say are deeply flawed.
Jessica Hornig, a
Rhode Island social worker who supervised two dozen other UnitedHealthcare
social workers and therapists seeing patients with drug addiction and other
serious problems, said their laptops marked them “idle” when they ceased
keyboard activity for more than a short while. They were labeled derelict
during sensitive conversations with patients and visits to drug treatment
facilities.
“This literally killed
morale,” Ms. Hornig said. “I found myself really struggling to explain to all
my team members, master’s-level clinicians, why we were counting their
keystrokes.”
In recent years, she
said, the scores have become even more consequential: On performance
evaluations, social workers were rated 1 to 5 based on the amount of time they
were digitally engaged — numbers that affected compensation. Ms. Hornig said
her team spent hours each week piecing together alternate records but had
trouble keeping up without compromising core parts of their job.
Other UnitedHealth
employees described similar problems. For Linda Eusebi,
who works on insurance letters from her home in Garden Grove, Calif.,
compensation is tied to “idle time.” At the end of the workday when her
company-issued computer is shutting down, it sometimes gets stuck in “idle”
mode all night, throwing off her numbers. (She said her managers, aware of the
problems but unable to fix them, began reminding her and others to jiggle their
mice during meetings and training sessions.)
Isaac Sorensen, a
spokesman for Optum, a division of UnitedHealth Group, acknowledged that the
company monitored employees but declined to say how many, and said it
considered several factors in evaluations. “We know there is no single measure
to fully assess team productivity or individual performance,” he said.
For frustrated
employees, or for companies navigating what to disclose to workers or how to
deploy metrics in pay or firing decisions, the law provides little guidance. In
many states, employers have “carte blanche in how to implement these
technologies to surveil workers,” said Ifeoma Ajunwa, a law professor at the University
of North Carolina.
Many of today’s
workplace regulations, including the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, were
written long before “bottom performer” dashboard displays were conceivable. A
New York law that took effect this spring requires employers to disclose the
type of information they collect. But efforts to enact a similar rule in
California stalled amid opposition from business groups.
“The technology is
just growing and improving so quickly,” said Brian Kropp, the chief of research
for Gartner’s human resources practice. “It’s moving faster than employees
realize it is, and a whole lot faster than government can regulate it.”
Investment in new workplace technologies has been soaring, according to Jason Corsello, a venture capitalist, who called “performance
management” one of the fastest-growing categories, with an eightfold increase
in funding in the last five years.
But the march toward
ever-tighter monitoring is also encountering some limits. Some companies have
rejected the approach outright, and earlier this year, Amazon quietly eased
back on the best-known, and most criticized, productivity metric in the
American workplace.
For years, Amazon’s
“time off task” policy recorded warehouse workers’ every pause and resulted in
the firing of highly praised employees after one bad day.
With unionization efforts underway on Staten Island and new California
regulations on warehouse metrics, Amazon reformulated
its rules. The company still calculates every worker’s “rate,” or pace. But the
term “time off task” has been retired, according to Kelly Nantel,
a spokeswoman, and managers have been directed to look only into “idle” periods
longer than 15 minutes. The updated rules, she said, are meant to recognize
that employees may need to confer with a colleague or spend a few extra minutes
in the restroom — in other words, to better reflect people’s natural behavior
and cadences.
IN THE FIRST MONTH after joining the group of hospice
chaplains in Minnesota, the Rev. Heather Thonvold was
invited to five potlucks. To endure the constant sorrow of the work, the more
than a dozen clergy members ministered to one another. Sometimes the cantor in
the group played guitar for his mostly Protestant colleagues. There was comfort
in regarding their work as a calling, several of them said.
In August 2020, the
productivity revolution arrived for them in an email from their employer, a
nonprofit called Allina Health.
“The timing is not
ideal,” the message said, with the team already strained by the pandemic. But
workloads varied too widely, and “the stark reality at this point is we cannot
wait any longer.”
Allina was already
keeping track of productivity, but now there would be stricter procedures with
higher expectations. Every morning the chaplains would on a spreadsheet the number of
“productivity points” they anticipated earning. Every evening, software would
calculate whether they had met their goals.
But dying defied
planning. Patients broke down, canceled appointments, drew final breaths. This
left the clergy scrambling and in a perpetual dilemma. “Do I see the patients
who earn the points or do I see the patients who really need to be seen?” as
Mx. Thonvold put it.
At the chaplains’
meetings, they d their apprehension. The type of attention and care that had
drawn them to this work could impede their point totals, they told their
managers. The dying were often lonely, and the
difficulty of travel during the pandemic left them more isolated. Some asked
questions with no short answers, like “What’s it like to die?” Ms. Richardson
said.
“People’s entire life
experiences come into play,” she continued. “You get it all: the tears, the
anger, the guilt.”
Sometimes the
chaplains sacrificed points, risking reprimand or trying to make them up later.
But their jobs depended on meeting the standards. So they shifted whom they saw
when, the time they spent and the depth of their relationships with the dying,
some said. Group settings like nursing homes were rich sources of points.
Single patients in homes dotting the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area were
not.
“This is going to
sound terrible,” Mx. Thonvold said, “but every now
and again I would do what I thought of as ‘spiritual care drive-bys’” to rack
up points. If a patient was sleeping, “I could just talk to the nurse and say,
‘Are there any concerns?’ It counted as a visit because I laid eyes.”
But last summer, Ms.
Richardson and Mx. Thonvold came to the same
conclusion: The metrics prevented them from fulfilling their calling. They
quit.
Allina’s director of
hospice, Lisa Abicht, said in a statement that the
company was “extremely proud of the high-quality and compassionate hospice
care” its teams provide. Since the productivity changes, she said, employees’
goals and performance were more transparent, workloads were more balanced, and
“patient satisfaction scores” and “employee sustainable engagement” scores were
up.
The productivity
project, she said, had been a success.
ATTACHMENT
ONE (A) – From the NY Times
Don’t Worry, We’re Not Actually Monitoring Your
Productivity
Across the country, companies are using
tracking software to monitor their employees. A recent Times investigation
simulated how the software works — and how it feels to be watched.
By Kate
Dwyer
Aug. 19, 2022
Times Insider explains who we are
and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism
comes together.
Scrolling through a recent New York Times interactive article evoked
anxiety — panic, even — for some online readers. That’s by design: The article,
which explores how many U.S. companies now measure worker productivity with
monitoring software, uses a tracking simulation built by Times journalists to
mirror the experience for readers. As you scroll through the article (or worse,
stop scrolling), pop-ups not-so-gently check in on your reading progress. “We
can tell you’re idling,” one notification says if you are reading too slowly.
The article, an investigation
written by Jodi Kantor and Arya Sundaram, has been months in the making. Last
winter, Ms. Kantor sat down with Rumsey Taylor, an assistant editor in design,
and Aliza Aufrichtig, a graphics and multimedia
editor, to discuss the presentation of the investigation. The team knew it
would be difficult for many readers to visualize how workplace productivity
software worked and wanted to make the topic feel visceral for those who have
never encountered it firsthand.
“Let’s do the thing you’re writing
about,” Mr. Taylor suggested, by embedding the text of the article within an
interactive tracking simulation, so readers could feel the anxiety of being
monitored themselves.
First, Ms. Aufrichtig
experimented with demos of existing tracking software. Then, she and Mr. Taylor
began coding a draft of the simulation. Ms. Kantor kept the design concept in
mind as she wrote the article. At a certain point, Ms. Kantor said in an email,
the journalists’ work converged: “Arya and I were sharing our findings with
Rumsey and Aliza, whose own close examination of productivity software fed back
into the reporting.”
The first notification readers see
informs them that a simulation will show them what it’s like to be tracked by
productivity software and that they’ll “be graded” when they reach the end of
the article. As readers scroll, notifications (“Hey there, speedreader,”
and “Hey, are you still there?”) pop up on the screen hinting at their
progress; a status bar indicates whether they are “active” or “idle.”
Mr. Taylor compared deciding what to
track to “making an editorial judgment as to what was appropriate to the
reporting and what was irrelevant to it.” For example, in an early incarnation,
ghost trails (like footprints in the snow) followed readers’ cursors across the
screen. The pop-ups originally appeared after 10 seconds of inactivity, but
they were deemed too distracting and ultimately set to appear after 30 seconds
of idleness instead.
“Our whole team wanted the reader to
experience the powerful reactions to being tracked that so many sources
conveyed, but not get so annoyed that they would give up on the article,” Ms.
Kantor wrote.
The team also scrapped a complicated
software that ranked readers, comparing them on things like reading speeds. “We
felt like having your results travel beyond your experience was too far,” Ms. Aufrichtig said. And unlike most real workplace tracking
software, The Times’s simulation does not store
the data.
Beyond replicating the feeling of
being tracked, the team also wanted to convey the strangely cheerful way the
surveillance software is marketed and designed. “We were visually inspired by
hipster app design,” Ms. Aufrichtig said, citing the
visual language of subway advertisements with sans-serif type and saturated
colors. She watched “cheery” sales videos for the software, her favorite of
which told employers they could track their workers “during scheduled shifts …
or always!” Regardless of how uncomfortable tracking software might
make workers, most of these ads suggest wanting to change the world for the
better. “We wanted to get at that visually, and tonally,” she said. Ms. Kantor
and one of her editors, Lanie Shapiro, then finessed the language to capture a
tone that was both playful and serious.
Since the investigation was
published on Aug. 14, it has amassed more than 1,300 comments. Readers also d
their own experiences being monitored at work via a form at the bottom of the
webpage. “Based on the thousands of reader comments and submissions, I’d say
the audience didn’t only absorb this story — they felt it,” Ms. Kantor wrote.
“I hope that this story demonstrates
that format can inform the reporting very clearly,” Mr. Taylor said. “That’s
our ambition with a lot of what we publish.”
When Ms. Aufrichtig
read through the article post-publication, she received only an “Acceptable”
grade. “You read at a reasonable pace with a few interruptions,” her final
evaluation informed her. “Your focus wasn’t perfect, but we’ve seen worse.”
Even having built the system, she
said, she couldn’t swing a top score.
A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 19, 2022, Section A, Page 2 of the New York
edition with the headline: We Can Tell You’re Idling (Not Really). Order
Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
ATTACHMENT
TWO – From CNN
WORKERS’ WAGES CONTINUE TO CLIMB,
BUT NOT AS FAST AS INFLATION
By Tami Luhby, CNN
Updated 12:30 PM EDT, Fri
July 29, 2022
New YorkCNN
Business —
Employers
continued hiking workers’ pay at a brisker-than-expected pace, but the
increases still weren’t enough to compensate for the even faster rise in
inflation.
Wages
and salaries for civilian workers increased 1.4% in the second quarter and 5.3%
over the year ending in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’
Employment Cost Index, released Friday. Both measures show swifter
growth than in the first quarter.
The
12-month jump was the highest since the spring of 1983, though the quarterly
change did not surpass the 1.5% increase in the fall of 2021.
However,
the picture is not as rosy once inflation is taken into account. Wages and
salaries declined 3.5% over the past year, after adjusting for rising prices.
That’s
just a touch better than the 3.6% drop for the year ending in March, which was
the largest decrease since the bureau began keeping inflation-adjusted records
in 2001.
The
data shows that people are really falling behind, said Jason Furman, an
economics professor at Harvard University and former chair of the Council of
Economic Advisers in the Obama administration.
“And
they’re falling behind, not because wage growth is slowing, but because price
growth is so high,” Furman said. “And that’s a worrisome sign for the
future.”
The
super-tight labor market during the Covid-19 pandemic has forced employers to
increase their compensation to fill open positions and hold on to their staff,
though the raises aren’t keeping up with the cost of living.
This
is adding to concerns about the duration and pervasiveness of inflation.
The
Employment Cost Index report is a favorite of the Federal Reserve, which is
closely monitoring the extent to which skyrocketing inflation is boosting wages
to help it determine how much to hike interest rates. The US central bank on
Wednesday approved
its second-straight three-quarters of a percentage point rate hike as
it tries to tamp down rising prices.
In
a press conference Wednesday, Fed chair Jerome Powell called the index
“important” because of how it accounts for the composition of the labor market.
The
data tracks changes in employers’ labor costs for wages and salaries, along
with health, retirement and other benefits. The index is not subject to the
same distortions as other measures, such as average hourly earnings, because it
keeps the composition of the workforce constant.
Wage
growth won’t abate until the labor market turns and gets weaker, said Robert
Fry, chief economist at his eponymous firm. Employers have continued adding
jobs even as the economy
contracted in the second quarter.
“You
need a higher unemployment rate and more slack there to get wage increases back
down,” said Fry, who expects to see price growth start to slow before pay hikes
do. Good!
Cost of benefits cools
Overall,
the growth in employers’ compensation costs moderated slightly in the second
quarter, coming in at 1.3%, before accounting for inflation. That compares to
1.4% in the first quarter but was still slightly higher growth than economists
expected.
However,
over the course of the year ending in June, total compensation costs jumped
5.1%, a quicker pace than the 4.5% increase for the year ending in March.
The
growth in benefits costs, which takes into account the amount paid for
retirement, health and other benefits, dipped to 1.2% for the spring, compared
to 1.8% in the prior quarter.
Benefits
costs increased 4.8% over the most recent 12 months, compared to 4.1% over the
year ending in March.
Looking ahead
The
hotter-than-projected wage data, as well as a new 40-year high in another key
inflation measure released on Friday, means that the Federal Reserve will most
likely continue raising interest rates this year.
The Personal
Consumption Expenditures price index, which measures the change in
the prices of goods and services purchased by consumers, rose by 6.8% in June
as compared to the same period last year, according to data from the Bureau of
Economic Analysis.
“There
was nothing in today’s reports that’s going to cause the Fed to question
whether they should keep tightening,” Fry said. “I’d lean towards 75
basis points the next time too, until we see some kind of break
on inflation, both wages and prices.”
ATTACHMENT the LAST – From the U. S. Department
of Labor
State Minimum Wage Laws
Updated July 1, 2022
·
Table
of minimum wage by state
Legend
·
States with Higher Minimum Wage than
Federal
·
States with the same Minimum Wage as
Federal
·
States with lower Minimum Wage rates
- Federal Applies
·
States with no Minimum Wage rates -
Federal Applies
·
States with special Minimum Wage
Alabama
No state minimum wage law.
Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must pay
the current Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Alaska
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $10.34
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Daily - 8,
Weekly - 40
Under a voluntary flexible work hour plan approved by the
Alaska Department of Labor, a 10 hour day, 40 hour workweek may be instituted
with premium pay after 10 hours a day.
The premium overtime pay requirement on either a daily or
weekly basis is not applicable to employers of fewer than 4 employees.
The minimum wage is adjusted annually based on a set
formula.
Arizona
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $12.80
Arkansas
Applicable to employers of 4 or more employees
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $11.00
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Starting in 2019, the minimum wage will undergo a series of
scheduled increases until it reaches $11.00 in 2021.
California
Applicable to employers with 25 employees or less
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $14.00
Applicable to employers with 26 employees or more
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $15.00
Any work in excess of eight hours in one workday, in excess
of 40 hours in one workweek, or in the first eight hours worked on the seventh
day of work in any one workweek shall be at the rate of one and one-half times
the regular rate of pay. Any work in excess of 12 hours in one day or in excess
of eight hours on any seventh day of a workweek shall be paid no less than
twice the regular rate of pay. California Labor Code section 510. Exceptions
apply to an employee working pursuant to an alternative workweek adopted
pursuant to applicable Labor Code sections and for time spent commuting. (See
Labor Code section 510 for exceptions).
From 2017 through 2023, the minimum wage will increase
annually to $15.00/hour on a set schedule and will be adjusted annually thereafter
based upon a set formula and the number of employees.
Premium Pay After Designated
Hours 1 : Daily - 8 Over 12 (double time), Weekly - 40; on 7th day:
First 8 hours (time and half) Over 8 hours on 7th day (double time)
Colorado
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $12.56
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Daily - 12,
Weekly - 40
Minimum wage rate and overtime provisions applicable to
retail and service, commercial support service, food and beverage, and health
and medical industries.
Connecticut
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $14.00
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
In restaurants and hotel restaurants, for the 7th
consecutive day of work, premium pay is required at time and one half the
minimum rate.
The Connecticut minimum wage rate automatically increases to
0.5 percent above the rate set in the Fair Labor Standards Act if the federal
minimum wage rate equals or becomes higher than the State minimum.
Delaware
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $10.50
The State adopts the federal minimum wage rate by reference
if the federal rate is greater than the State rate.
Florida
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $10.00
The minimum wage is adjusted annually based on a set
formula.
Georgia
Applicable to employers of 6 or more employees
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $5.15
The State law excludes from coverage any employment that is
subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act when the federal rate is
greater than the State rate.
Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must pay
the current Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Hawaii
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $10.10
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
An employee earning a guaranteed monthly compensation of
$2,000 or more is exempt from the State minimum wage and overtime law.
Domestic service workers are subject to Hawaii's minimum
wage and overtime requirements. Act 248, Regular Session 2013.
The State law excludes from coverage any employment that is
subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act unless the State wage rate is
higher than the federal rate.
Idaho
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
Illinois
Applicable to employers of 4 or more employees, excluding
family members
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $12.00
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Indiana
Applicable to employers of 2 or more employees
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Iowa
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
The Iowa minimum wage equals the federal minimum wage rate
if it is set below the federal rate.
Kansas
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
The State law excludes from coverage any employment that is
subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
Kentucky
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40,
7th day
The 7th day overtime law, which is separate from the minimum
wage law, requires employers who permit covered employees to work seven days in
any one workweek to pay the employee at a rate of time and one-half for hours
worked on the seventh day when employees work all seven days of the workweek.
The 7th day overtime law does not apply when the employee is not permitted to
work over 40 hours total in the workweek.
The state adopts the federal minimum wage rate by reference
if the federal rate is greater than the State rate.
Compensating time in lieu of overtime is allowed upon
written request by an employee of any county, charter county, consolidated
local government, or urban-county government, including an employee of a
county-elected official.
Louisiana
No state minimum wage law.
Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must pay
the current Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Maine
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $12.75
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
If the highest federal minimum wage is increased in excess
of the State minimum wage in effect, then the State minimum wage will increase
to the same amount, effective on the same date as the increase in the federal
minimum wage.
From 2017 through 2020, the minimum wage will increase
annually on a set schedule and will be adjusted annually thereafter based on a
set formula.
Maryland
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $12.50
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
The Maryland minimum wage equals the federal minimum wage
when set below the federal rate.
Employees under 18 years may be paid 85% of the minimum
hourly wage rate.
Massachusetts
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $14.25
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
In no case shall the Massachusetts minimum wage rate be less
than $0.50 higher than the effective federal minimum rate.
Michigan
Applicable to employers of 2 or more employees
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $9.87
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
The State law excludes from coverage any employment that is
subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act unless the State wage rate is
higher than the federal rate.
From 2019 through 2030, the minimum wage will increase
annually on a set schedule, provided the unemployment rate in the preceding
year does not exceed 8.5%.
Employees 16-17 years of age may be paid 85% of the minimum
hourly wage rate.
Minnesota
Large employer (enterprise with annual revenues of $500,000
or more)
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $10.33
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 48
Small employer (enterprise with annual revenues of less than
$500,000)
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $8.42
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 48
The minimum wage is adjusted annually based on a set
formula.
Employees under 18 years may be paid $8.42 per hour
Missouri
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $11.15
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 2 : Weekly - 40
In addition to the exemption for federally covered
employment, the law exempts, among others, employees of a retail or service
business with gross annual sales or business done of less than $500,000.
Premium pay required after 52 hours in seasonal amusement or
recreation businesses.
The minimum wage is adjusted annually based on a set
formula.
Continuing on from 2019 to 2023, the minimum wage will
increase 85 cents per hour each year before reaching $12.00.
Mississippi
No state minimum wage law.
Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must pay
the current Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Montana
Business with gross annual sales of more than $110,000
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $9.20
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Business not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act with
gross annual sales of $110,000 or less
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $4.00
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
A business not covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards
Act whose gross annual sales are $110,000 or less may pay $4.00 per hour.
However, if an individual employee is producing or moving goods between states
or otherwise covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, that employee
must be paid the greater of either the federal minimum wage or Montana's
minimum wage.
The minimum wage is adjusted annually based on a set
formula.
North Carolina
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Premium pay is required after 45 hours a week in seasonal
amusements or recreational establishments.
North Dakota
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Nebraska
Applicable to employers of 4 or more employees
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $9.00
New Hampshire
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
The New Hampshire minimum wage equals the federal minimum
wage when set below the federal rate.
New Jersey
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $13.00
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
The minimum wage is adjusted annually based on a set
formula.
There is a minimum wage of $11.90 per hour for seasonal and
small employers who employee fewer than 6 people.
New Mexico
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $11.50
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Nevada
With no health ins. benefits provided by employer
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $10.50
With health ins. benefits provided by employer and received
by employee
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $9.50
The minimum wage is adjusted annually based on a set
formula.
New York
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $13.20; $15.00 (Long Island,
Westchester, & NYC)
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
These rates are in effect from December 31, 2021 through
December 30, 2022. View minimum wage rates through 2022.
The New York minimum wage equals the federal minimum wage
when set below the federal rate.
Under the new hospitality regulations, residential workers
("live-in workers") are now entitled to overtime for hours worked
over 40 in a payroll week, instead of the prior 44 hour requirement. Therefore,
overtime hours for all non-exempt workers are now any hours worked over 40 in a
payroll week.
Employers operating a factory, mercantile establishment,
hotel, restaurant, freight/passenger elevator, or theater; or a building
employing security guards, janitors, superintendents, managers, engineers, or
firemen must provide 24 hours of consecutive rest each week. Domestic workers
are entitled to 24 hours of consecutive rest each week, and receive premium pay
if they work during such period.
Employees receive 1 hour of pay at minimum wage rate in
addition to owed wages when spread of hours exceeds 10 hours, there is a split
shift, or both.
Ohio
Employers with annual gross receipts of $342,000 or more
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $9.30
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Employers with annual gross receipts under $342,000
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
The minimum wage is adjusted annually based on a set formula
Oklahoma
Employers of ten or more full time employees at any one
location and employers with annual gross sales over $100,000 irrespective of
number of full time employees
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
All other employers
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $2.00
The Oklahoma state minimum wage law does not contain current
dollar minimums. Instead the state adopts the federal minimum wage rate by
reference.
The State law excludes from coverage any employment that is
subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
Oregon
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $13.50
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Premium pay required after 10 hours a day in nonfarm
canneries, driers, or packing plants and in mills, factories or manufacturing
establishments (excluding sawmills, planning mills, shingle mills, and logging
camps).
From 2016 through 2022, the minimum wage will increase
annually on a set schedule and will be adjusted annually thereafter based on a
set formula.
Pennsylvania
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Rhode Island
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $12.25
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Time and one-half premium pay for work on Sundays and
holidays in retail and certain other businesses is required under two laws that
are separate from the minimum wage law.
South Carolina
No state minimum wage law.
Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must pay
the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
South Dakota
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $9.95
The minimum wage is adjusted annually based on a set
formula.
Tennessee
No state minimum wage law.
Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must pay
the current Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Texas
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
The State law excludes from coverage any employment that is
subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
The Texas State minimum wage law does not contain current
dollar minimums. Instead the State adopts the federal minimum wage rate by
reference.
Utah
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
The Utah state minimum wage law does not contain current
dollar minimums. Instead the state law authorizes the adoption of the federal
minimum wage rate via administrative action.
The State law excludes from coverage any employment that is
subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
Virginia
Applicable to employers of 4 or more employees
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $11.00
Vermont
Applicable to employers of two or more employees
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $12.55
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
The Vermont minimum wage is automatically replaced with the
federal minimum wage rate if it is higher than the State minimum.
Washington
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $14.49
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Premium pay not applicable to employees who request
compensating time off in lieu of premium pay.
From 2017 through 2020, the minimum wage will increase
annually on a set schedule and will be adjusted annually thereafter based on a
set formula.
Wisconsin
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
West Virginia
Applicable to employers of 6 or more employees at one
location
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $8.75
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Wyoming
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $5.15
Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must pay
the current Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
District of Columbia
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $16.10
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
From 2017 through 2020, the minimum wage will increase
annually on a set schedule and will be adjusted annually thereafter based on a
set formula.
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $7.25
The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands has special
minimum wage rates .
Puerto Rico
Employees covered by the FLSA
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $8.50
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Daily - 8, And
on statutory rest day (double time), Weekly - 40 (double time)
Employees not covered by the FLSA
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $5.08
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Daily - 8, And
on statutory rest day (double time), Weekly - 40 (double time)
Employers covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act
(FLSA) are subject only to the federal minimum wage and all applicable
regulations. Employers not covered by the FLSA will be subject to a minimum
wage that is at least 70 percent of the federal minimum wage or the applicable
mandatory decree rate, whichever is higher. The Secretary of Labor and Human
Resources may authorize a rate based on a lower percentage for any employer who
can show that implementation of the 70 percent rate would substantially curtail
employment in that business.
American Samoa
American Samoa has special
minimum wage rates .
Virgin Islands
State law
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $10.50
Guam
Basic Minimum Rate (per hour): $8.75
Premium Pay After Designated Hours 1 : Weekly - 40
Footnote
1 The
overtime premium rate is one and one-half times the employee's regular rate,
unless otherwise specified.