2008-04-21 Wage erosion cuts deeper in U.S.

2008-04-21 \US economy\Pennsylvania http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/20/business/wage.php Wage erosion cuts deeper in U.S. &ldquo;The $20 hourly wage, introduced on a huge scale in the middle of the last century, allowed masses of Americans with no more than a high school education to rise to the middle class. It was a marker, of sorts, but it is becoming extinct. .. Americans greeted the loss with anger and protest when it first began to happen in big numbers in the late 1970s, particularly in the steel industry in western Pennsylvania. But as layoffs persisted, in Pennsylvania and across the country, through the '80s and '90s and right up to today, the protests subsided and acquiescence set in.&rdquo;   