What if a re-reading of the data reveals the Reagan and Clinton years actually boosted the wages of blue collar and middle income households?
One of the statistical touchstones for left-leaning economists is the run of figures showing that US workers have suffered three decades of flat wages. There is no better way to illustrate how capitalism, marching to its own tune, fails most of America’s 160 million workers than wage data that hardly moves from year to year after inflation is taken into account.
Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and best-selling economist Thomas Piketty often characterise the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the 2000s until the financial crash, as periods of stellar growth that bypassed the average worker. This story of workers slaving, only for corporations to reap the benefits is allied to Piketty’s history of wealth accumulation, which puts a figure on the astounding riches in property and savings amassed by the most affluent 1% in recent years.
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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS