In a union concession, workers were to pay 1.5 percent of their wages toward health premiums.

For this and other reasons, the study said, Nicaraguan workers have lost 90 percent of their real wages in eight years.

Employers are required to contribute 20 percent of a person's wages toward health and retirement programs.

French pensions pay retirees about 70 percent of their average wages.

The official press has already acknowledged that some large state companies are unable to pay workers more than 40 percent of their wages.

It also would have required workers, for the first time, to pay 1.5 percent of their wages toward health premiums.

She saves 10 percent of her wages but leaves the money in a savings account.

My sister keeps 45 percent of her wages, like every average Georgia family today, to do the same job.

Both plans were started in the mid-1940's and have produced, over the years, about 30 percent of each worker's total wages, which now average $30,000.

They estimated that women would make at least 74 percent of men's wages by 2000.