3 ms·

three decades of declining wages and increasing demands, plus de-facto "illegal" workers in every city in the USA.. perhaps a factor?

astrange 4y ago
US real median household income is 55% higher in 2019 than 1990. https://twitter.com/MichaelRStrain/status/1603414811471134723 https://twitter.com/MichaelRStrain/status/160341481147113472...
- graevy 4y ago
  your source, some guy on twitter from the "american enterprise institute" marketing his book "the american dream is not dead", is cherrypicking from the low to high points of the business cycle: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N from a dataset which actually tracks data outside that range: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-11/58353-HouseholdIncome.pdf https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-11/58353-HouseholdInco... a more robust dataset, which you would get by simply searching "US real median household income" and opening the first result citing census data, indicates that, charitably, real median household income has risen about 25% since 1980: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=bOeD https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=bOeD wikipedia's article, which has thoroughly succumbed to link rot, in addition to citing the above data, also provides historical census data neatly summarized on page 5 of this census report pegging an increase at about 15-20% since 1964: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-252.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio... this took me 3 minutes
  - astrange 4y ago
    The difference is mainly that the number I linked is "after taxes and transfers". Also surely 2019 is not the peak of the business cycle? Feb 2020 is. Peak-to-now real income is up for bottom 50% of households since then (https://realtimeinequality.org/?id=income&incomeend=09012022&incomefreq=monthly&incomegroups=Top%2010%25&incomegroups=Middle%2040%25&incomegroups=Bottom%2050%25&incomegroups=Total&incomestart=02012020&incometype=posttax_income&incomeunit=Households&incomey=growth https://realtimeinequality.org/?id=income&incomeend=09012022...) but flat for the rest due to inflation.
mistrial9 4y ago
"Rising wage inequality and slow and uneven hourly wage growth for the vast majority of workers have been defining features of the U.S. labor market for the last four decades, despite steady (if too slow) productivity growth. " --Elise Gould, Senior Economist, The Economic Policy Institute https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2019/ https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2019/

astrange 4y ago

US real median household income is 55% higher in 2019 than 1990. https://twitter.com/MichaelRStrain/status/1603414811471134723 https://twitter.com/MichaelRStrain/status/160341481147113472...

graevy 4y ago
your source, some guy on twitter from the "american enterprise institute" marketing his book "the american dream is not dead", is cherrypicking from the low to high points of the business cycle: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N from a dataset which actually tracks data outside that range: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-11/58353-HouseholdIncome.pdf https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-11/58353-HouseholdInco... a more robust dataset, which you would get by simply searching "US real median household income" and opening the first result citing census data, indicates that, charitably, real median household income has risen about 25% since 1980: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=bOeD https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=bOeD wikipedia's article, which has thoroughly succumbed to link rot, in addition to citing the above data, also provides historical census data neatly summarized on page 5 of this census report pegging an increase at about 15-20% since 1964: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-252.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio... this took me 3 minutes
- astrange 4y ago
  The difference is mainly that the number I linked is "after taxes and transfers". Also surely 2019 is not the peak of the business cycle? Feb 2020 is. Peak-to-now real income is up for bottom 50% of households since then (https://realtimeinequality.org/?id=income&incomeend=09012022&incomefreq=monthly&incomegroups=Top%2010%25&incomegroups=Middle%2040%25&incomegroups=Bottom%2050%25&incomegroups=Total&incomestart=02012020&incometype=posttax_income&incomeunit=Households&incomey=growth https://realtimeinequality.org/?id=income&incomeend=09012022...) but flat for the rest due to inflation.

mistrial9 4y ago

"Rising wage inequality and slow and uneven hourly wage growth for the vast majority of workers have been defining features of the U.S. labor market for the last four decades, despite steady (if too slow) productivity growth. " --Elise Gould, Senior Economist, The Economic Policy Institute https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2019/ https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2019/