You're broke! (and here's some proof)

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times:

For the first time in 14 years, the American workforce has in effect gotten an across-the-board pay cut. The growth in wages in 2004 and the first two months of this year trailed inflation, compounding the squeeze from higher housing, energy and other costs...

Meanwhile, corporate profits hit record highs as companies got more productivity out of workers while keeping pay increases down...

Although the unemployment rate has dropped to a relatively low 5.2%, that figure doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of jobless people who've given up their searches and dropped out of the labor market at a greater rate than anytime since 1988. At the same time, the cost of health premiums has skyrocketed, eating into the pool of corporate cash set aside for raises. Although pay rose only about 2.4% last year, benefit costs jumped almost 7%...

Janemarie Mulvey, chief economist with the Employment Policy Foundation, a business-funded think tank in Washington said, "in the long run, we can't continue like this. If healthcare keeps crowding out wages forever,something's got to give."

[4/12/05 Update]
The New York Times chimes in. (YES! we beat them by one whole day!)