ECONOMY — WORKERS WORSE OFF ON PAY, EMPLOYMENT: A Rutgers University labor scorecard reported that workers are “in worse shape than they’ve been in years,” with 10 percent of Americans “unemployed, discouraged from seeking work or underemployed.” Median weekly earnings have not grown in real terms over the last eight years, and the federal minimum wage is now “worth 40 cents less per hour, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was a decade ago.” Despite these discouraging figures, President Bush declared in his radio address this week that “there have been some signs that our economy is beginning to improve.” In fact, Bush will leave the next president with a record deficit of over $480 billion, the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression, and the lowest rate of job creation in the last 40 years. “Professor Douglas Kruse, a labor economist who created the scorecard, said a sharp decline in the number of Americans able to find full-time jobs, along with growing consumer debt and health care costs, were causes for concern.”

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