As Americans try to enjoy an extra day off in celebration of the working man and woman, they might not want to consider what's happening to the fruits of their labor.

In the 10th edition of its The State of Working America, released Saturday, the liberal Economic Policy Institute paints a daunting picture with a fusillade of statistics.

The median family's real income (wages with the effect of inflation on purchasing power figured in) fell 3 percent between 2000 and 2004, the last year for which numbers were available. That's in contrast to steady increases in this figure from 1979 to 2000.

During most of America's long run as an economic powerhouse, income has increased in step with productivity, the output of goods and services per hour. Productivity grew 2.5 percent per year from 1995 to 2000, and family income grew 2.2 percent annually during that same period. Productivity jumped to 3.1 percent a year from 2000 to 2005. But Americans didn't see a similar jump in pay.

Overall, the share of national income due to wages and salary has dropped steadily since 2000. What share increased as workers lost? Corporate profits. And, yes, many shareholders are workers, too. But this method of distributing the fruits of productivity clearly increases income inequality.

EPI's economists say the job market accounts for stagnant wages; so many Americans are out of work or underemployed that employers don't need to increase wages to attract workers.

But the unemployment rate is only a low 4.7 percent, you might say. True, but EPI argues the figure doesn't include millions of people jobless for so long that they are no longer considered in the job market. Job creation rates are only fair.

Defenders of President Bush say the economy is percolating at a good rate, and by some measures, that's true. They just don't happen to be the measures that most affect the status of the average working stiff.

Besides sluggish wages, workers' share of health insurance and pension costs has gone up. Among college graduates in entry-level jobs, the segment with company health insurance dropped from 70 percent to 63 percent between 2000 and 2005.

New census figures also show the recovery since the 2001 recession had little impact on poverty. After four years of upticks, the poverty rate remained 12.6 percent in 2004 and 2005. That's 37 million Americans below the poverty line; many of them work every day.

The people in power in Washington right now don't like to talk about such disparities. That's engaging in class warfare, they say. No, it's pointing out trends that run contrary to the American ideal.

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