Stagnant Wages

Here are a couple of tables from the CBO's report "Changes in the Distribution of Workers’ Annual Earnings Between 1979 and 2007".

The first graph shows that wages (expressed in constant 2007 dollars) were stagnant for most people through the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush eras, except for:

• A blip of growth under the Clinton years.


• The fact that women's wages, especially in the higher income ranges showed some growth over this whole period.


• The rich showed real growth while the bottom 80% were stagnant.

To press home that last point, here is a breakout of the top 10% and you can see, the richer you were, the better you did:


Remember, these are the glory years of the Reagan "revolution". This represents the wet dream of the radical right. The Republicans lowered taxes on the rich at the same time that the rich were running away with bigger incomes. So much for a "middle class" America...