The Economist: “That may not seem like much to cheer about, given that it works out to real wage increases of less than 0.5% per year for the past half-century. Yet it is not bad. The slowness is overstated by a dreadful stretch for workers from 1970 to the mid-1990s, a period when unions broke down and companies spent heavily on the labour-saving technology of the modern workplace. Since 2000, partly thanks to that investment, income growth has consistently been faster, working out to nearly 1.5% a year. That puts income growth in America near the top among large, wealthy countries.”
“The more serious problem is that while average incomes look pretty good in America, many people have not experienced them. The gains have been disproportionately captured by the rich.”
