<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; "><h1 class="txttitle" style="margin-top: 30px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 2px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 22px; font-weight: bold; ">Why Wages Won't Rise</h1><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 2px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; ">By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 2px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; font-size: 15px; color: rgb(220, 59, 65); font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; ">15 January 15</div><div style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; font-size: 15px; "> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; font-size: 15px; "><img border="0" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; " id="1bdacfe0-788b-48a1-b446-aa9ac96333eb" height="32" width="13" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:4632298D-F7DC-4896-957A-E09C78085CED">obs are coming back, but pay isn’t. The median wage is still below where it was before the Great Recession. Last month, average pay actually <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">fell</a>. </p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 30pt; ">What’s going on? It used to be that as unemployment dropped, employers had to pay more to attract or keep the workers they needed. That’s what happened when I was labor secretary in the late 1990s.</p></span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><a href="http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/28066-focus-why-wages-wont-rise">http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/28066-focus-why-wages-wont-rise</a></body></html>