The Palm Beach Post reports this morning that wage growth for Floridians is the slowest it’s been since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Here’s what that looks like:
People who are out of work often don’t have the luxury of waiting for a job that fits their skills precisely. Sometimes that means they have skills that aren’t needed so they’re not being paid for that superfluous master’s degree.
Already, laid-off workers are seeing a drop off in their perceived worth.
Three years ago, Iwasan David Kejawa earned $40,000 a year as a Palm Beach County adult education teacher. He assumed his earning prospects would only grow. But when he lost that job just as the economy tanked, Kejawa fell into a cycle of accepting one temporary dead-end job after dead-end job.
“I’ve been looking for jobs for the past three years,” Kejawa said. “Now I’m working at Lowe’s .”
He earns $10 an hour and often can only snag part-time hours.
The bigger question is what is Gov. Scott and the Legislature doing about this? Hardly anything. Their focus is on undermining teachers, firefighters, and police officers: cutting their pay and damaging small businesses and local economies in the process.