MIAMI, Fla. (Aug. 29, 2000) -- 

Florida workers are working harder and can barely keep up with their counterparts in other states, despite a decade of economic expansion, reveals The Labor Report on the State of Florida 2000, released this week.

“On this Labor Day we should take notice that workers in our state often labor under standards and conditions well below national or regional norms,” said Bruce Nissen, a researcher at the Florida International University Center for Labor Research and Studies, and the study’s principal author.

For the first time this year, the data has been broken up according to metropolitan statistical areas to facilitate comparisons between metropolitan areas and the state and then the state and the country, explained Nissen, who has been compiling this report for the last three years.

“In most comparisons, Florida is falling behind,” he said.

Data for Florida’s counties show a sharp discrepancy in wages. While a relatively small group of large, mostly urban counties are doing well, average wages for most of the other counties are far below the state average. The full report provides data on recent employment, unemployment and wage trends for each of Florida’s 67 counties.

The study makes an important distinction between income, which rose by 4.4 percent during last year, and wages, which hardly rose at all from a median of $8.61 per hour to $8.79 in the last 10 years (in constant 1999 dollars).

“This stagnant wage growth is unprecedented in times of such steady expansion and wealth creation,” said Nissen. “The discrepancy between wages and income can be explained by people who hold two jobs, and those who receive returns on investments rather than wages from work performed.”

Inequality also grew in the past decade. The state’s poorest 20 percent lost 3 percent in real (inflation-adjusted) income from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, while the richest 20 percent gained 13 percent. The middle 20 percent gained only 2 percent in that ten-year period.

One notable piece of good news from this year’s report: Total non-agricultural employment for June increased 4.4 percent from a year earlier, placing Florida in the number one slot in growth rate among the 10 most populous states.

To view the entire report, go to http://www.fiu.edu/~clrs/index/2000FLA.html

For more information, call Nissen at 305-348-2616 or nissenb@fiu.edu Media Contact: Maydel Santana-Bravo (305) 348-1555 santanam@fiu.edu .