Taken from the Levy Institute – something we’ve all known for a long time. Declining real wages, especially affected by the increasing skill set visible in the workforce:
Earning less than your your older siblings and nephews and nieces is getting increasingly likely, though less so for women and blacks. This is not mainly a sectoral composition effect.
Workers’ wages are the most important component of household money income. Representing about 83 percent of total household income, they are the driving force behind changes in income growth and inequality. Consequently, changes in wages play an important role in determining trends in income inequality, household spending, and the overall welfare of households. In the last 20 years, while nominal wages have shown a consistent and upward trend (Figure 1), real wages have progressed much more slowly … after a long period (beginning in 1973) of stagnant real wages, in the late 1990s low unemployment rates, increases in the minimum wage, and improvements in labor productivity contributed to a boost in wages, which translated into 12.4…
View original post 210 more words
