July 17, 2019

Wages Are Up, But Will They Stay Up?

Still bored. My Twitter mentions are a cesspool right now. The white nationalists are out in force this evening for some reason.

Anyway, here is year-over-year growth in wages for blue-collar workers for the past 20 years. We’ve had a nice uptick over the past year or so, the fifth time since 1999 that wage growth has been above 1 percent for a sustained period. The dashed orange line shows the average over the period of the chart.

However, wages have already started to tick back down. Here’s an up close and personal look at just the past few years:

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A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

With only days left until December 31, we've raised about half of our $400,000 goal—but we need a huge surge in reader support to close the remaining gap. Whether you've given before or this is your first time, your contribution right now matters.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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