Rich ARE getting richer: Wages for the top one percent skyrocketed 160% since 1979 while the share of wages for the bottom 90% SHRANK
Wage growth for the nation’s richest people has far outpaced average workers over the past 40 years, according to a new study.
In every period since 1979, wages for the bottom 90 percent were continuously redistributed upward to the top 10 percent – and frequently to the very highest 1 and 0.1 percent, according to a report last week from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think-tank.
The wage data comes from published Social Security Administration information on W-2 earnings, which include realized stock options and vested stock awards.
The study shows that from 1979 to 2019, the top 1 percent saw their wages grow by 160 percent, adjusted for inflation, while those in the bottom 90 percent had annual wages grow by just 26 percent, shrinking their total share of income.
Wages for the top 0.1 percent grew more than twice as fast as those of the 1 percent, up a spectacular 345.2 percent.
The disparities in long-term wage growth reflect a major redistribution upward of wages over the past four decade.
The bottom 90 percent earned 69.8 percent of all earnings in 1979 but only 60.9 percent in 2019.
In contrast, the top one percent nearly doubled its share of earnings, from 7.3 percent in 1979 to 13.2 percent in 2019.
The growth of wages for the top 0.1 percent was the major driver, with that group more than tripling it share of all earnings, from 1.6 percent in 1979 to 5 percent in 2019.
The study also found that for the bottom 90 percent of earners, the vast majority of wage growth was concentrated in the two periods of sustained low unemployment representing 11 of the 40 years.
http://www.madnesshub.com/2020/12/rich-are-getting-richer-wages-for-top.html