By Lawrence Mishel and Julia Wolfe

Newly available wage data for 2017 show that annual wages grew far faster for the top 1.0 percent (3.7 percent) than for the bottom 90 percent (up only 1.0 percent). The top 0.1 percent saw the fastest growth, up 8.0 percent—far faster than any other wage group. This fast wage growth for the top 0.1 percent reflects the sharp 17.6 percent spike upwards in the compensation of the CEOs of large firms: executives comprise the largest group in both the top 1.0 and top 0.1 percent of earners. The fast wage growth of the top 1.0 percent in 2017 brought their wages to the highest level ever, $719,000, topping the wage levels reached before the Great Recession of $716,000 in 2007. The wages of the top 0.1 percent reached $2,757,000 in 2017, the second highest level ever, roughly only 4 percent below their wages in 2007.

These are the results of EPI’s updated series on wages by earning group, which is developed from published Social Security Administration data. These data, unlike the usual source of our wage analyses (the Current Population Survey) allow us to estimate wage trends for the top 1.0 and top 0.1 percent of earners, as well as those for the bottom 90 percent and other categories among the top 10 percent of earners. These data are not topcoded, meaning the underlying earnings reported are actual earnings and not “capped” for confidentiality.

As Figure A shows, the top 1.0 percent of earners now earn by 157.3 percent more than they did in 1979. Even more impressive is that those in the top 0.1 percent had more than double that wage growth, up 343.2 percent since 1979 (Table 1). In contrast, wages for the bottom 90 percent only grew 22.2 percent in that time. Since the Great Recession, the bottom 90 percent enjoyed very modest wage growth, with annual wages (i.e., reflecting growing annual hours as well as higher hourly wages) up just 5.4 percent over the eight years from 2009 to 2017. In contrast, the wages of the top 0.1 percent grew 29.8 percent from 2009 to 2017 (Table 1).

Wages fell furthest among the top 0.1 and 1.0 percent of earners during the financial crisis and, as noted above, the top 0.1 percent have not yet recovered their prior earnings (though they now have just had their second best year ever).

Lots happening these days: the grizzly murder of a Saudi journalist, baseball championships (Go Dodgers!!), mid-term elections, Presidential temper tantrums about "Horseface" and "Pocahontas." The usual.

But by far the most important thing happening today is the Fall 2018 Regulatory Agenda.  Release of the Regulatory Agenda is a much anticipated (for regulatory geeks) semi-annual event that gives the President the opportunity to boast about his  efforts to allegedly "Cut Burdensome Red Tape and Unleash the American Economy”

Or, as we here at Confined Space like to call it, his efforts to cut worker, environmental and consumer protections and release the scourge of unbridled, predatory Capitalism upon the American people.

This latest version was released in the wee hours of the morning -- about the same time as the Dodgers 13th inning walkoff victory over the Brewers. Happily, at OSHA and MSHA, at least, there's not a whole lot of new protection-cutting going on. In fact, nothing significantly new has appeared on the regulatory agenda for the worker safety and health agencies.  Just the same old story -- in Democratic of Republican administrations -- pretty much everything is delayed, because the one thing that experienced regulators (or de-regulators) can agree on is that "Regulatory Agencies Plan. God laughs."

SBREFA! Say it Loud and There's Music Playing....

Let's start with some good news for a change.  OSHA has more or less met its deadline by convening a SBREFA (small business review) panel to launch the process of issuing a standard protecting telecommunication tower workers who have a tendency to fall hundreds of feet to their deaths with disturbing frequency.  This effort was launched under the Obama administration. That this would be the first SBREFA panel of this administration is not surprising as the communication tower industry has been lobbying OSHA for regulatory action. (Yes, some industries actually like regulations -- as long as they feel they can control the outcome sufficiently.)

Next up on the SBREFA front is Emergency Response, an effort started under the Obama administration, that seeks to update, consolidate and enhance OSHA's requirements for protecting emergency response workers.  This SBREFA panel is supposed to launch this month. Following Emergency Response is SBREFA for Workplace Violence, currently scheduled for March (delayed two months from its original January 2019 date.)

President @BarackObama doesn't have time for these 7 excuses not to vote. pic.twitter.com/2Etpm6taTq

— ATTN: (@attn) October 17, 2018

Time for another steel tariffs update!

A few months ago, Canada was considering erecting safeguard tariffs against certain steel products after America’s broad steel tariffs caused a surge of dubiously cheap imports to wash up in the Canadian market.

It looks like Canada is done considering. Those safeguards are going up. Reports the Wall Street Journal:

The goal of the so-called safeguard measures is to prevent a surge of overseas steel imports from entering Canadian markets. Canada’s steel industry has complained in recent months that U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, imposed on national-security grounds and affecting most countries, have caused more shipments of cheap steel to be diverted to Canada from the U.S. …

The new measures could address concerns from the Trump administration that foreign companies are using Canada as a backdoor to move their metals into the U.S., trade watchers say. Canada is trying to convince the U.S. to lift tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, which it imposed earlier this year on national-security grounds. Canada is the largest foreign supplier to the U.S. of both metals.  

The national security tariffs on steel and aluminum were not lifted as a result of the renegotiated NAFTA, and have been received as an insult north of the border, according to Politico’s Alexander Panetta.   

I know we say this a lot, but there’s a lot going on these days.

So, we wouldn’t blame you if you missed this piece of news: Earlier this month, the Trump administration officially unveiled its strategy for strengthening American leadership in advanced manufacturing.

Put together by the National Science and Technology Council Subcommittee on Advanced Manufacturing, the 40-page strategy document focuses on three key goals: the development and transition of new manufacturing technologies, the education and training of the manufacturing workforce, and the expansion of domestic manufacturing across the supply chain.

Strategic objectives for achieving each goal are included in the report, along with specific outcomes that are designed to be accomplished within four years. The plan received input from across the federal government, and many federal agencies are tasked with helping to achieve the objectives.

For example, the strategy includes priorities like expanding apprenticeships and career and technical education pathways; properly enforcing Buy American policies; and recognizing the role of programs like Manufacturing USA and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership in stimulating innovation and supporting small and mid-sized manufacturers.

And although it’s a product of the Trump administration, the new strategy began long before The Donald even came on the D.C. scene, when Congress passed the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act back in 2014.