U.S. Average Wages Lag Far Behind Many Western Nations

Mr. Bush is on the road promoting what he claims to be "good news" regarding U.S. employment. However, there is far more involved in any discussion of economics than mere employment numbers. In the American capitalist economy, workers and wages are supply and demand commodities. When wages become low enough, more workers will find employment, but at lower wages as they can be hired at bargain prices.

Compared to many Western world average wages, the U.S. lags far behind many states. The U.S. average wage of just $33,195 compares very poorly against the averages wages of Germany at $50,445, $46,541 in the U.K., $45,879 in France, $45,839 in Japan and even the $38,259 in Ireland, once thought to be one of the world's poorest nations because of the old economy destroyed by the potato famine.

And as the world economy becomes more globalized, foreign nations take advantage of cheap American labor to build their products. Americans become the low wage "Chinese" labor for wealthy states such as Germany and Japan to build their products. Germany's BMW for example takes advantage of the low wages paid in "right ro work" states such as South Carolina and pays far less to workers in this state than worker receive in Germany for building the same products. And Japanese manufacturers also take advantage of lower American wages to build their products. In both cases while some lower wage income jobs remain behind in America with some local benefit, most of the product value sold in America flows to foreign nations and increases their wealth compared to the U.S. It is in this way that states like South Carolina are kept near the bottom of state per capita income by a continued culture of low paying jobs, and become attractive to foreign states to increase their wealth comparable to the U.S.

While Mr. Bush attempts to claim that his tax cuts are somehow responsible for increased American employment figures, and should be made permanent, there is no real hard evidence to support this politically moltivated premise.

If anything, there is better evidence of other economic trends such as major job layoffs at GM, more job outsourcing as more U.S. companies fall victim to unfair foreign economic competition, and trends of increased competition over tightening supplies of oil, wood, steel and aluminum with China that all hold promise for increased prices in 2006. OPEC will decide on oil production cutbacks this month, and the price per barrel for petroleum has increased to $60 a barrel again. And China has decided to relax regulations in 80 Chinese cities that restricted the number of automobiles allowed. More and more Chinese automobiles will be produced in China and compete for declining world oil supplies and production output in 2006.

And there is so much political uncertainty in Israel where Binyamin Netanyahu may benefit from a death of Israeli leader Sharon. Netanyahu would likely attack Iran in response to their nuclear program and this could impact the flow of oil from the MidEast as Iran controls the Strait Of Hormuz.

There is very thin reasons for Mr. Bush to credit his tax breaks for the increased employment figures. Wages have only become low enough that more workers have jobs, but their income lags thousands of dollars behind workers in other nations. The U.S. is still a prime area for foreign growth into our economy as some foreign states become more powerful at the expense of U.S. nationalism.