Larry Mishel and Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute There is now widespread acceptance across the political spectrum that the typical worker’s wages have grown very slowly or been stagnant for several decades but a consensus narrative explaining wage stagnation has not developed yet. [togglable text="expand abstract"] The frequently invoked conventional explanations attributing wage problems primarily to automation and, somewhat, to globalization, cannot actually explain key wage develo...| Economic Policy Institute
The huge gap between rising incomes at the top and stagnating pay for the rest of us shows that workers are no longer benefiting from their rising productivity. Before 1979, worker pay and productivity grew in tandem. But since 1979, productivity has grown eight times faster than typical worker pay (hourly compensation of production/nonsupervisory workers).| Economic Policy Institute
Our country has suffered from rising income inequality and chronically slow growth in the living standards of low- and moderate-income Americans. This disappointing living-standards growth—which was in fact caused by rising income inequality—preceded the Great Recession and continues to this day. Fortunately, income inequality and middle-class living standards are now squarely on the political agenda.…| Economic Policy Institute