Wages rose in 2020 … for people who already made a lot of money. That continues a decades-long trend of rising inequality in which, from 1979 to 2020, wages for the top 1% grew by 179.3%, wages for the top 0.1% grew by 389.1%, and wages for the bottom 90% grew by just 28%.
Here’s what that looks like:
The Economic Policy Institute’s look at Social Security Administration data for 2020 reveals how the trend played out in 2020: Wages for the top 1% went up by 7.3%, wages for the top 0.1% went up by 9.9%, and wages for the bottom 90% went up by just 1.7%. This is part of an ongoing upward redistribution of wealth: In 1979, the bottom 90% of earners took in 69.8% of the income. In 2020, the bottom 90% got just 60.2% of the income. During the same years, the share of income going to the top 1% nearly doubled, going from 7.3% to 13.8%. The result: “growing inequality of wages zapped wage growth for the bottom 90% by about 0.5% each year.”
And wage growth for the bottom 90% has come as the exception: “the wage growth for the bottom 90% over the 1979–2019 period (ending at the end of the last recovery rather than the bottom of a new recession) was almost entirely concentrated in the two periods of sustained low unemployment representing 11 of the 40 years: the bottom 90%’s wage growth in the 1995–2000 and 2013–2019 periods represented 90% of all the wage growth ($7,320 of $8,144) over the entire 1979–2019 period.”
Aren’t you glad we’ve got all the Republicans plus Joe Manchin blocking anything that might give regular working people a boost?
Here’s what that looks like:
The Economic Policy Institute’s look at Social Security Administration data for 2020 reveals how the trend played out in 2020: Wages for the top 1% went up by 7.3%, wages for the top 0.1% went up by 9.9%, and wages for the bottom 90% went up by just 1.7%. This is part of an ongoing upward redistribution of wealth: In 1979, the bottom 90% of earners took in 69.8% of the income. In 2020, the bottom 90% got just 60.2% of the income. During the same years, the share of income going to the top 1% nearly doubled, going from 7.3% to 13.8%. The result: “growing inequality of wages zapped wage growth for the bottom 90% by about 0.5% each year.”
And wage growth for the bottom 90% has come as the exception: “the wage growth for the bottom 90% over the 1979–2019 period (ending at the end of the last recovery rather than the bottom of a new recession) was almost entirely concentrated in the two periods of sustained low unemployment representing 11 of the 40 years: the bottom 90%’s wage growth in the 1995–2000 and 2013–2019 periods represented 90% of all the wage growth ($7,320 of $8,144) over the entire 1979–2019 period.”
Aren’t you glad we’ve got all the Republicans plus Joe Manchin blocking anything that might give regular working people a boost?