Workers Have Finally Caught Up to 1974

Here’s a paragraph from the Wall Street Journal today:

Real wages for nonsupervisors, which take inflation into account, topped $22 an hour this year, the best inflation-adjusted reading since January 1973,¹ according to Labor Department data. The nonsupervisory figure covers about 70% of the workforce and excludes managers who are more likely to receive bonuses, stock options and other forms of nonwage compensation.

Translation: wage growth for ordinary workers has been so bad that it’s taken 44 years to finally catch up to the levels of 1973.

The article goes on to talk about wage growth during this recovery compared to past recoveries, but you really need to see the whole picture in one place to understand what’s going on. Here it is:

Roughly speaking, the years from 1978 to 1995 were a horror show. During that 17-year period, wages dropped by 15 percent, or 0.9 percent per year. Since then, however, wages have grown steadily. In the 22 years from 1996 to 2017, wages have increased 18 percent, or about 0.9 percent per year.

This is what makes the whole “economic anxiety” interpretation of the 2016 election so peculiar. In 1992, workers had been getting stiffed for over a decade, and winning a campaign by appealing to this hardship made sense.

But in 2016? Wages have bounced around a bit, but basically workers have been making steady gains for over two decades. In particular, between 2012 and 2016 wages rose a healthy 1.35 percent per year—one of the country’s best 4-year periods since the late 60s—and the unemployment rate dropped more than three points. It’s easy to argue—and I do!—that worker gains should have been even higher, but it’s hard to argue that ordinary workers have been in such dire straits that they were willing to vote for anyone who promised to look out for them.

At the same time, there’s little evidence that racism had any more effect on the 2016 election than it did on previous elections. That’s not for lack of trying on Trump’s part, but the white vote has been reliably Republican at about the same level for three decades.² The deplorables who voted for Trump all voted for Bush and McCain and Romney too.

So what’s left? Not much except for James Comey’s letter re-opening Hillary Clinton’s email case. Even with that, Clinton still outperformed the fundamentals. Without it, she would have won.

¹Actually, I think this ought to be January 1974, but what’s a year between friends?

²Except for 1992 and 1996, when Ross Perot split the conservative white vote.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate