Just came across this long-term quintiles of inflation-adjusted US household income - amazing the difference. If you didn't believe the wage/productivity divergence, it's hard to argue with this.
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For those who haven't seen the wage-productivity divergence, here's that chart.
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I’ve never seen anyone deny this, but many so defend this picture, as in… pre-1974 middle class was free riding on easy growth, and the productivity trend post 1974 only continued because of deregulation in the face of globalized competition and oil shocks
More fascinating than the turn in the wage graph is the lack of a turn in the productivity graph despite ending of post-WW2 easy dominance of a war devastated world. The easy growth ended but the growth continued through tech and automation.
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Yea, though the Progress Studies folks would point to lower secular productivity in the latter period I believe.
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That's the narrative I'm most familiar with as well, but I've seen arguments against it. However, it seems like a lot of hair splitting when you look at those real income quintiles.
The key words in that article are "expanded the def of labor" ie included the top quintiles.
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"If you just include the rich, there is no income gap! All wages matter!"
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