Oh Look, America! Your Wages Didn’t Increase!
Are you really that surprised, America?
Republicans assured you that your annual wages would grow due to their tax plan’s trickle-down magic. A month removed from the GOP’s legislative success, and this unsurprising news surfaces:
Only 9 companies in the S&P 100 contacted by CNBC said they have specific plans to use some of the money saved from the corporate tax cuts to boost worker pay or invest in facilities or charitable causes.
Of the companies which do plan on relinquishing some of their wealth, like Comcast and Walmart, it seems that $1,000 is the number of choice. Even then, these are not pay raises but instead one-off bonuses and the conditions attached to them are hysterically limited.
For instance, if you worked at Walmart for nineteen years you would not receive the aforementioned $1,000. But if you spent twenty years toiling for the corporate giant? You’re in luck! Hard work does pay off.
These bonuses are lackluster, arbitrary, and insulting. Yet our media entities are treating them seriously—without acknowledging that these one-off pay bumps are not what we were promised in the first place.
An honest headline about this subject would read: “Companies Fail To Live Up To Wage Increases, Instead Offer One-Off Bonuses.”
Instead, we got The New York Times telling us that “Companies Are Handing Out Bonuses Thanks to the Tax Law.” USA Today followed suit with “What employers gave bonuses and raises after big tax cut” and The Washington Examiner similarly noted how “$1,000 employee bonus check credits ‘Trump Tax Cut And Jobs Act’”.
Whether or not any of these articles later highlight the lack of wage increases is meaningless. Headlines matter. When it comes to digesting news, more than six out of ten Americans admit they just read the headlines.
Our media is being sloppy and carrying water for these trickle-down lies, and it is infuriating to witness, particularly from the “liberal” NYT.
What’s more, these bonuses don’t actually offer more long-term agency to workers. Martha White at TIME explains:
Since bonuses and similar performance incentives are often viewed by workers as a sort of add-on perk, they can also be used as a “carrot” to motivate workers, and they can give workers a perception that they’re more in control of how much they earn.
Exactly.
If Republican lawmakers were actually interested in directly raising wages, they’d increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 and they’d raise the overtime pay threshold to apply to the majority of salaried workers — not just the 11% it currently covers.
The idea that the tax bill was ever going to spur wage growth was always a lie, a scam designed to placate the anxieties of Americans who see record-high corporate profits and wonder, “Where’s my pay increase?”
The honest answer is: Your raise is coming, America, and it’s going to be very unsatisfactory. A report from a consulting firm Korn Ferry predicts that US workers should expect an average pay increase of 3%, but after adjusting for 2% inflation, that means they’ll see a bump of 1%. Let it rain!
Say what you will about the evils of corporate America, but at least they are being honest to the American people on this issue. So what if half of the 100 biggest companies by market capitalization didn’t “comment on the impact on the tax bill on their plans for investment or workers’ paychecks?” At least they have the decency to keep their mouths shut.
Republicans could learn a thing or two about integrity from these corporations—and that’s saying something.
