I thought I would be happy to find out that the wage gap between men and women in North America has shrunk to a record low, albeit still formidable, 18.3%. Unfortunately, women’s wage aren’t rising. Men’s wages are dropping!

While there is still a disparity in wages for high end professions, wages for most white collar jobs have dropped more sharply for men than for women, whose earnings have remained somewhat flat.

This is partially the effect of globalization. The pro-outsourcing policies that have encouraged companies to seek cheaper, tax free labor overseas have implicitly underplayed the value of local labor. Since they popped the Dotcom bubble and sent skilled jobs overseas, there is less and less work being done here that couldn’t be done cheaper elsewhere. In order to stay competitive in this decade of outsourcing and downsizing, employees must be willing to accept less pay for the same jobs they were doing in 2000.

And that’s just the tech jobs. Six years of haphazard management have ravaged the US economy and put a long term halt to the upward momentum Americans were used to in the 80′s and 90′s. Projections indicate that the trend of flat or shrinking wages will continue into the near future. Add to that the continuing weakness of US dollars and consumer confidence and it’s no wonder average workers have seen their pay shrink.