Where cause we went? For health care.

It is waging a vs. health benefits. On this labor day, almost everything seems to be going right for the typical American worker, with the exception of striking and confuse the stagnation of wages.

The unemployment rate is 3.9 percent, near the lowest point since the year 2000. The number of new jobs exceeds the peak in 2008 by around 11 million. Then there is the stagnation of wages.

Corrected for inflation, wages or less 2 percent since January of 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The gain was about half of 1 percent annually. Little wonder that many workers feel they are not getting ahead. They are not.

A strong economy and growth, by textbooks, supposed to make upward pressure on wages as the company bids to better workers and store employees around to pay higher. All sorts of absurd theories have been put forward to explain why this did not happen.

Demographics are cited. Well-paid baby boom workers retiring and being replaced by millennials are paid; This dragged down the average wage. Or the great recession left workers and entrepreneurs with psychological trauma. Workers are more concerned with job security.


They suspect the presses to large wage increases, as does the company suspected of providing them. Another theory is the wage Mismeasurement.

All this explanation may be important, but it is a major contributor — may be the major contributor — may lie elsewhere: the cost of healthcare. Money for wage increases is now redirected to pay for employer-provided health insurance.

A new study provides an estimate of the amazing: 60 percent down to U.S. workers, wage gains have been completely destroyed by the contribution of employer-provided health insurance.

This study focused on workers full, year-round from 1980 until the year 2015. It does not cover people who are unemployed or have government insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, and the affordable care Act).

Using government data and the private survey of the Willis Tower, a consulting firm, the study compared with income wages and salaries to the cost of the Natura (especially pension and health benefits).

The bottom 50 percent of the workers, employers health insurance contributions average 30 to 35 percent of the company's total compensation package.

The company also increased the premiums workers must pay to get coverage. From the year 1999 to the year 2015, the family plan premium for workers more than doubled in inflation-adjusted dollars, from around $2,000 per year to almost $5,000.

As this shows, health care costs higher fell the hardest workers are paid. Reason: insurance is a big part of their total compensation. (In the example, $5,000 is 10 percent of the income for workers making $50,000 but only 5 percent for workers making $100,000.)

Long been known that the rapid increase in health care costs pressing down wages. But it's "nobody has put a figure quite like we have ... [shows] how it affects pay stagnating and the distribution of pay,  "said Sylvester Schieber, an economist with the retirement of Willis Tower Watson and author of the study, along with Steven Nyce, Director of the Research company. The study is also co-sponsored by the Council for affordable health coverage, a business group.