THE WORKERS' STATE

By Louis Nemeth

NINETEEN EIGHTY-EIGHT was not a banner year for workers. Much like 1987 and 1986, 1988 was marked by rising costs and static wages. Young blacks saw their ability to find work decline in 1988, continuing a problem that has plagued the underclass throughout the Reagan era. Wages and Salaries Gains in average weekly earnings for 1988 were more than offset by inflation, leaving most categories of workers poorer, in terms of spending power, than in 1987.

The total private sector average weekly earnings increased by $9.85 in 1988 over the previous year, from $312.50 to $322.15, a gain of 3 percent. Inflation, however, ran at roughly 4 percent. Manufacturing employees saw a 25 percent increase, from $406.31 to $416.56. Service workers were the only category to outpace inflation, registering a 4.8 percent increase in average weekly earnings. But they remain one of the lowest-paid categories of workers, bringing home, on average, $289 per week. Michigan showed the highest average weekly earnings for production workers in 1988, at $581.59, while Mississippi registered a meager $322.73 average weekly income for this category of workers. Production workers in Alaska and Ohio also averaged more than $500 per week in earnings ($566.35 and $523.06, respectively), while these workers earned less than $350 weekly in North and South Dakota, North and South Carolina, Arkansas, Rhode Island and New Mexico.

Unemployment

The number of people out of work in 1988 was about 700,000 fewer than in 1987. The unemployment rate through the first 11 months of 1988 averaged 5.4 percent, compared to 6.1 percent for 1987.

At the same time, both the size of the labor force and the number of people not looking for work increased. Although the unemployment rate in 1988 dropped slightly, there are more people unemployed today than there were in 1979 (roughly 6.7 million, compared to 5.9 million in 1979). And since 1980 more than 2 million people have left the labor force completely. Taking into consideration increases in the size of the labor force, the unemployment rate in 1988 is only slightly better than when Ronald Reagan took office.

The much-ballyhooed "gains" in the employment area, cited frequently during the recent presidential election, can be attributed to improvements from the dismal 1983-84 period, when the country was first emerging from a recession and the unemployment rate hovered at 7.4 percent. Unemployment rates fluctuate drastically when demographic variables are included in the calculations. Only 4.6 percent of the white workforce was unemployed in November, 1988, compared to 11.2 percent of all black workers, and 29.7 percent of blacks aged 16 to 19.

The level of education also directly correlates to unemployment rates. Among all 16 to 24 year olds no longer in school, unemployment ran at 20.4 percent for those not completing high school, dropping to 3.9 percent for college graduates. Blacks in the same age group experienced a 31.1 percent unemployment rate for those not finishing high school. The 16 percent black unemployment rate for high school graduates aged 16-24 was dramatically larger than the 8.4 percent unemployment rate for white high school graduates in the same age group.

Unemployment rates also varied considerably by industry and occupation. Only 1.6 percent of all managerial and professional workers were out of jobs in November, 1988. This contrasts with 6.8 percent unemployment among service workers and 7.8 percent for operators, fabricators and laborers. Those employed in finance, insurance and real estate experienced 3.2 percent unemployment, while the construction industry averaged 9.9 percent unemployment and 10.4 percent of agricultural workers were not employed.

The amount of time the average worker was unemployed registered a slight improvement in 1988, with the average duration dropping from 14 weeks in November, 1987 to 12.5 weeks in November, 1988. Almost half of all unemployed workers had found new employment within five weeks, but more than 10 percent spent six months or more on the unemployment rolls. The length of unemployment varied among industries. Over one- fifth of unemployed construction workers and almost one-fourth of unemployed manufacturing workers spent over 15 weeks looking for work in 1988. The average duration of unemployment was 11.6 weeks for construction workers and 14.7 weeks for manufacturing employees.

Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont registered the lowest unemployment rates in November, 1988, with 2.3 percent of the labor force out of work. Rhode Island and Massachusetts ranked fourth and fifth, with 2.5 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively. By contrast, 9.5 percent of the labor force in Louisiana was looking for work, and 8.8 percent of the workforce in West Virginia was unemployed. Alaska and Mississippi registered 8.4 percent and 8.0 percent unemployment, respectively, with New Mexico showing 7 percent out of work.

Worker Health and Safety

It was also a tough year for workers in terms of job safety and health, also. For the fiscal year ending September 30,1988, the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) conducted a total of 58,354 inspections covering 2.9 million employees. OSHA documented 154,884 violations of federal health and safety laws in these inspections. Of these, 54,277 were "serious" violations, 1,269 were "wilful" violations, and more than 4,100 "repeat" violations. The agency imposed penalties totalling slightly more than $45 million, or roughly $300 per violation. The largest penalties fell on John Morrell & Co., a wholly-owned subsidiary of United Brands, Inc., for what OSHA called "hundreds of instances of alleged wilful safety and health violations." The agency proposed $4.33 million in fines against the meatpacking company after a six-month investigation disclosed that 880 of the 2,000 employees at a Sioux Falls, South Dakota plant sustained "serious and sometimes disabling" injuries between May 1987 and April 1988.

A Bright Spot?

Not everybody struggled through 1988, however. Corporate profits continued to climb, as they have throughout the Reagan years. Third quarter projections for 1988 indicated that corporations would bring in $330 billion for the year, up from $316 billion in 1987 and $282 billion in 1985. After-tax profits are projected at $169.1 billion for 1988, up from $127.8 billion in 1985. Corporations are holding onto profits at a greater rate than even three years ago, partly to finance the wave of mergers and acquisitions that have consumed the business world in recent years.

Less than 63 percent of after-tax profits will be distributed to stockholders as dividends in 1988, down from 68 percent in 1986. These year-end statistics show that: White managerial and professional men living in New England are better off than workers in the rest of the country. Mississippi is the worst place in the country to live, in terms of wage scales and unemployment rates. And most significantly, they show that the workers' state in 1988 was no better than in 1980. Eight years of Reaganomics have failed to produce the "trickle down" effect the president promised early in his first term. The growth that was supposed to lift the nation to new heights of prosperity-- "like the tide lifting a great boat," as Reagan once said--has instead left most workers treading water.