Stagnating Wages Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Claiming that compensation for workers has stalled in the last 40 years overlooks some obvious facts.
There are many ways to look at how they are doing.
Photographer: Viviane Moos Holbrooke/Corbis Historical via Getty Images
The average wage earned in America has been stagnating for four decades, according to the Pew Research Center. It’s a shocking finding. Thankfully, there are two reasons to be less dismayed by it than an initial glance would suggest.
In 2018, the average hourly wage was $22.65. Pew calculates that in inflation-adjusted terms, that’s the same wage rate as in 1978. Back then, employees took home fewer dollars, but they went just as far. Looking at the inflation-adjusted wage of the worker in the middle of the income distribution tells the same basic story: It has barely risen since 1979 (the first year for which we have the statistic).