Men’s Incomes Rising Slower Than in Past, Study Says : Pay: American men are now starting work at lower wages than were paid 20 years ago and will get smaller increases, a congressional report says.

Men today are seeing their incomes rise far more slowly than their counterparts in the 1950s and 1960s, a congressional report said Tuesday.

The report from the Congressional Joint Economic Committee staff also said that American men in the 1990s are starting work at lower wages than were paid 20 years ago and will get smaller increases during their careers.

“Americans expect their incomes to improve over their lifetimes and expect their children to do better than they did,” said Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.), the committee chairman. “Neither of these expectations is likely to be met if current economic trends are allowed to continue.

“Unless there is a significant change in the economic outlook, it is unlikely that men today will do as well in the labor market as the generation before them.”

The report compared income for men for each decade from 1949.

It said a similar comparison for women could not be made because a much greater percentage of women are working now than 40 years ago.

Until the last two decades, the study found that men could expect steady income increases throughout their lives as they gained seniority and benefited from general wage increases.

“Younger men in recent years have tended to start their careers at lower earnings levels and have had smaller increases as they aged,” the report said. “Older men, ahead of them in the job market, have seen sluggish or declining earnings, also falling short of advances for men of the same age in earlier decades.

“The typical young man of 1989 found himself starting on an income level one-seventh lower than his counterparts 10 and 20 years earlier. In addition, after the 1980s, he might expect a youth gain of only 20%, virtual stagnation in midlife and a decline of 20% in later life.”

Men in the 1950s and 1960s could expect 50% wage gains in the first 10 years of work, over 30% in the next 20 years and 25% in later years, the study said.

It recommended better education and job training programs and government efforts to expand job opportunities for less-educated Americans.

“Failure to address these issues risks condemning a majority of working men to lives of economic disappointment,” it concluded.