Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[moonsun]

(context: The Fed chief than added that the 80 percent of the workforce represented by nonsupervisory workers has recently seen little, if any, income growth at all. The top 20 percent of supervisory, salaried. )

Does "the 80 percent of the workforce has seen little income growth"mean "Among all the workforce, 80% of it" has seen liitle income growth?
Does "the top 20 percent of supervisory" mean "among all the supervisory, 20% of it" was salaried?

Or does the sentences above mean "the workforce(80%) and the supervisory(20%) makes up of the whole, that is 100%"?

[asterix]

The first sentence means that 80% of the nonsupervisory workers have seen little or no increase in their pay.
The second sentence is incomplete and meaningless. Although it refers to the top 20% of salaried supervisors it fails to say anything about them.

It means overall, that of the 100% of nonsupervisory wokers, i.e. not in management positions, 80% of them have had hardly any, or no pay raises.
Presumably the other 20 % have had pay raises.

Probably, the second sentence goes on to say that 20% of the salaried, supervisory employees have not had a pay raise, but you have not quoted enough to be sure.