The rich must have started working much harder in 1980 [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Everyone knows that the rich are rich because they work so much harder than everyone else. I hear it on TV every day!

They must have started working super-hard around 1980. How else to account for this?


Chart from:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/things-were-supposed-to-be-quiet-about/
(This post is not Krugman's words. Only his chart. Don't blame him for whatever I say.)

Average people simply stopped sharing in the economic growth of the nation circa 1980.

A few points:

1) If everyone on the bottom 80% of the economy received a 50% pay raise tomorrow we would still have less "rising tide lifts all boats" than in the 1960s.

2) Take the Clinton presidency out of the mix and the median family income today would be about where it was in 1980.

3) Our method of restraining inflation is to restrain wages, and it works... if you don't care about wages. No wages, no wage/price spiral. 1980-2012 is a low inflation, low wage economy quite different from the previous higher wage inflationary 1930-1980 economy that created the American middle class. Inflation is a leveler. It's greatest effects are on idle capital. (When money becomes less valuable it most hurts people sitting on stacks of money.)

4) Since 1980, only the rich have recovered from recessions. Each substansial downturn ('82, '92, 2001, 2008) is like a pry-bar increasing income inequality in a way that does not correct in the "recovery"