Right Data

THE best of times? Hardly. Although median family income rose in 1995 and 1996, it has yet to recover from the declines suffered in the Bush and early Clinton years. For men, the Clinton boom has been a big bust. Men working in full-time jobs suffered, on average, a 0.9 per cent decline in income last year, and currently earn about 10 per cent less in real terms than they did at the end of the Reagan years.

A growing sense of this has forced men and women alike to work longer hours. The average employed male worked 84 hours—the equivalent of an extra two weeks—more in 1996 than in 1992. “Companies are offering the work, and people are self-insuring themselves, taking all the hours they can get because they are not sure they will have hours next year,” says University of Massachusetts economist Barry Bluestone.

THE best of times? Hardly. Although median family income rose in 1995 and 1996, it has yet to recover from the declines suffered in the Bush and early Clinton years. For men, the Clinton boom has been a big bust. Men working in full-time jobs suffered, on average, a 0.9 per cent decline in income last year, and currently earn about 10 per cent less in real terms than they did at the end of the Reagan years.

A growing sense of this has forced men and women alike to work longer hours. The average employed male worked 84 hours—the equivalent of an extra two weeks—more in 1996 than in 1992. “Companies are offering the work, and people are self-insuring themselves, taking all the hours they can get because they are not sure they will have hours next year,” says University of Massachusetts economist Barry Bluestone.