: Workers feel the squeeze

Consumers hold the answer.

While workers have lost clout in the U.S., consumers have gained clout, but rarely use it effectively.

Columns: Workers feel the squeeze:

With Labor Day approaching, it is time to assess the nature of work in this burgeoning Information Age. Are American workers better off than they were a couple of generations ago? Will they be better off in the future?

I can't imagine that many middle-class workers feel much optimism. America's middle class is being squeezed by soaring energy prices, rising health care costs and, here in Florida, insurance rates that are doubling and doubling again. The housing bubble is rapidly losing air, making the one asset that most Americans own less secure, while wage stagnation is making us poorer.

President Bush has been touting the health of the nation's economy, pointing to its vigorous productivity gains of 16.6 percent from 2000 to 2005. But what he doesn't say is that those gains have accrued exclusively to Bush's people - the owner class and other top dogs. While corporate profits are through the roof, the real median income of households headed by someone under 65 - the country's working families - has actually fallen 5.4 percent through the Bush years.

The question is whether this reversal for Joe Lunchbox will continue or whether something will come along to rescue America's middle class.