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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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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
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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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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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