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My pleasure! Another link from EPI explains it better than I can. >The Economic Policy Institute’s earlier paper, Raising America’s Pay: Why It’s Our Central E

My pleasure! Another link from EPI explains it better than I can. >The Economic Policy Institute’s earlier paper, Raising America’s Pay: Why It’s Our Central Economic Policy Challenge, presented a thorough analysis of income and wage trends, documented rising wage inequality, and provided strong evidence that wage stagnation is largely the result of policy choices that boosted the bargaining power of those with the most wealth and power (Bivens et al. 2014). As we argued, better policy choices, made with low- and moderate-wage earners in mind, can lead to more widespread wage growth and strengthen and expand the middle class. https://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-divergence-between-productivity-and-a-typical-workers-pay-why-it-matters-and-why-its-real/ https://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-d...

Veelox 8y ago
I skimmed it and the closest I could get to find an answer to my question was >Finally, it also seems worth noting that this decoupling coincided with the passage of many policies that explicitly aimed to erode the bargaining power of low- and moderate-wage workers in the labor market. I am in my 20's I was not alive in the 70's. What did Nixon, Ford, and Carter change in that time that eroded the bargaining power of wage workers?
- existencebox 8y ago
  This is a pet topic of mine. Here are some interesting breadcrumbs, although a sister post by dv_dt above was a far better summary than I could give, there are some things I think are illuminating specifically. While not specifically from the presidents you mention, I ascribe to a theory that there were broad cultural and economic shifts that caused the results you see. - The Powell Memo in 1971 [0] - Rise of corporate raiding ~1980 [1] - CPI inflection in 1970s [2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr.#Powell_Memorandum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr.#Powell_Mem... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_raid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_raid [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index#/media/File:US_Consumer_Price_Index_Graph.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index#/media/Fi...
- grasshopperpurp 8y ago
  I don't like seeing posts like this downvoted, as you seem genuinely curious about the issue, but to each his own, I guess. dv_dt and existencebox hit it well - cultural more than technical. But, the cultural changes impacted policy. I've posted the following article in the past, but it provides a clear image of the issue - from one of the people who set the wheels in motion. >But there is a theme that threads through and ties together all the strands: many of the most talented, driven Americans used what makes America great–the First Amendment, due process, financial and legal ingenuity, free markets and free trade, meritocracy, even democracy itself–to chase the American Dream. And they won it, for themselves. Then, in a way unprecedented in history, they were able to consolidate their winnings, outsmart and co-opt the forces that might have reined them in, and pull up the ladder so more could not share in their success or challenge their primacy. >By continuing to get better at what they do, by knocking away the guardrails limiting their winnings, aggressively engineering changes in the political landscape, and by dint of the often unanticipated consequences of their innovations, they created a nation of moats that protected them from accountability and from the damage their triumphs caused in the larger community. Most of the time, our elected and appointed representatives were no match for these overachievers. As a result of their savvy, their drive and their resources (and a certain degree of privilege, as these strivers may have come from humble circumstances but are mostly white men), America all but abandoned its most ambitious and proudest ideal: the never perfect, always debated and perpetually sought after balance between the energizing inequality of achievement in a competitive economy and the community-binding equality promised by democracy. In a battle that began a half-century ago, the achievers won. http://time.com/5280446/baby-boomer-generation-america-steve-brill/ http://time.com/5280446/baby-boomer-generation-america-steve...

Veelox 8y ago

I skimmed it and the closest I could get to find an answer to my question was >Finally, it also seems worth noting that this decoupling coincided with the passage of many policies that explicitly aimed to erode the bargaining power of low- and moderate-wage workers in the labor market. I am in my 20's I was not alive in the 70's. What did Nixon, Ford, and Carter change in that time that eroded the bargaining power of wage workers?

existencebox 8y ago
This is a pet topic of mine. Here are some interesting breadcrumbs, although a sister post by dv_dt above was a far better summary than I could give, there are some things I think are illuminating specifically. While not specifically from the presidents you mention, I ascribe to a theory that there were broad cultural and economic shifts that caused the results you see. - The Powell Memo in 1971 [0] - Rise of corporate raiding ~1980 [1] - CPI inflection in 1970s [2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr.#Powell_Memorandum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr.#Powell_Mem... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_raid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_raid [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index#/media/File:US_Consumer_Price_Index_Graph.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index#/media/Fi...
grasshopperpurp 8y ago
I don't like seeing posts like this downvoted, as you seem genuinely curious about the issue, but to each his own, I guess. dv_dt and existencebox hit it well - cultural more than technical. But, the cultural changes impacted policy. I've posted the following article in the past, but it provides a clear image of the issue - from one of the people who set the wheels in motion. >But there is a theme that threads through and ties together all the strands: many of the most talented, driven Americans used what makes America great–the First Amendment, due process, financial and legal ingenuity, free markets and free trade, meritocracy, even democracy itself–to chase the American Dream. And they won it, for themselves. Then, in a way unprecedented in history, they were able to consolidate their winnings, outsmart and co-opt the forces that might have reined them in, and pull up the ladder so more could not share in their success or challenge their primacy. >By continuing to get better at what they do, by knocking away the guardrails limiting their winnings, aggressively engineering changes in the political landscape, and by dint of the often unanticipated consequences of their innovations, they created a nation of moats that protected them from accountability and from the damage their triumphs caused in the larger community. Most of the time, our elected and appointed representatives were no match for these overachievers. As a result of their savvy, their drive and their resources (and a certain degree of privilege, as these strivers may have come from humble circumstances but are mostly white men), America all but abandoned its most ambitious and proudest ideal: the never perfect, always debated and perpetually sought after balance between the energizing inequality of achievement in a competitive economy and the community-binding equality promised by democracy. In a battle that began a half-century ago, the achievers won. http://time.com/5280446/baby-boomer-generation-america-steve-brill/ http://time.com/5280446/baby-boomer-generation-america-steve...