Sean Patrick Maloney: “data released Monday on productivity and wages show why the American people do not believe President Bush when he says…”

“data released Monday on productivity and wages show why the American people do not believe President Bush when he says our economic prospects are bright and improving. Yes, productivity is strong, and the economy is growing. But the benefits of that growth are showing up in the bottom lines of companies, not in the paychecks of American workers. While productivity grew at a 4.7 percent annual rate in the third quarter, workers' pay, including benefits, shrank at a 1.4 percent rate. Let me repeat that important point. Workers' pay shrank by 1.4 percent. Americans are working harder and producing more, but they are getting paid less. President Bush is seizing on some recent favorable economic indicators to claim that the Nation's economic outlook is brighter than we have seen recently. I certainly wish that that were true for most Americans. The typical American family has a very different view because they know that they are still being left behind in the current economic recovery. When I listen to the President recite the numbers he thinks show Americans are doing better, I am reminded of his speech in the Rose Garden several days after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, when he recited the numbers of trucks, pounds of rice and the National Guardsmen he had ordered to New Orleans. Meanwhile, anyone with a TV set would see that Americans were still desperately struggling to survive with absolutely no Federal help.…”