January 12, 2018

Raw Data: Wages for Ordinary Workers

For some reason there’s been a lot of chatter lately about wages finally going up after eight years of economic expansion. Really?

For ordinary workers, wages went up in 2015 and 2016 but have been pretty flat in 2017. In December their wages increased a whopping 0.17 percent compared to the previous year. That doesn’t seem very impressive to me.

Wage growth for all workers has gone up slightly more—0.38 percent in December—but that’s still nothing to write home about. And anyway, that includes wage growth for everyone, including doctors and lawyers and CEOs. My own view is that the economy is doing well when ordinary workers see wage gains, so that’s what I look at. And there’s just no there there for 2017.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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