Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
True, but 2020 data suffers from the massive changes in workforce composition that occurred as a result of pandemic restrictions. Lower wage people (and this would even apply within the quintiles) were far more likely to lose their jobs than higher wage people, which naturally pushes the median wage of the remaining workers upwards, even if wages stay the same. Then when they return to work in 2021 and after, the median would tend to drop back down.
That's what happened generally, and it was almost wholly due to labor force composition, and not people actually getting their pay cut. So the growth in 2020 was more or less artificial and not a reliable measuring stick. That's why they use pre-pandemic as the baseline, as it has a similar unemployment rate to 2023/24. And because we're talking about real wages, the deflationary period in 2020 also created an artificial boost to real wages in 2020 that didn't last.
To be fair, I'm not saying low wage workers should necessarily feel that much richer. Massive growth in asset values has largely left the working class behind, and that's why they generally feel worse off. However, the magnitude of real wage growth compared to the rest of the last 45 years among the low-to-middle income group is definitely worth highlighting. Their real wages were virtually stagnant for 4 decades until the pandemic.
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I don't disagree, I just think your post was misleading when you compared to "pre-pandemic" and referenced "the last four years", implying that the policies of the Democrats the last four years had led to that wage growth, when the data doesn't support that conclusion. Or at least that conclusion ignores the significant wage growth immediately preceding the pandemic and pre-Biden.