Comment by rayiner
8 hours ago
> You only need one statistic to understand America today, that working class Americans without college degrees have had their purchasing power stagnate since the 1970s(https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/)
Having a college degree was a much more selective measure in 1970 (about 10% of the population) than today (almost 40%). Consider a large law firm. In 1970, the only 4-year degree holders would have been the attorneys. A lot of work would have been done by well-compensated paralegals with high school diplomas. Today, everyone down to the receptionist will have a degree and the non-degree holders would basically be the maintenance and cafeteria staff.
So using your math, the income of non-college workers at the law firm could be stagnant from 1970 to today, even if the income of each specific position had increased significantly.
Look at the macro data. The overall median wage for all American workers combined has also drastically lagged behind economic productivity since the 70s.
It doesn’t make sense to talk about “economic productivity” as a single number. Productivity growth has been massively different for different jobs. For example, there has been zero productivity growth in food service from 1970 to present. So you’d need to look at wages by sector compared to productivity growth in that sector.