Even the Most Educated Workers Have Declining Wages

Shortly after the stock market rebounded from the depths of the financial crisis, Time magazine named Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as its 2009 Person of the Year for the aggressive interventions he took to presumably prevent a second Great Depression. Bernanke used his position at the Fed to blast trillions of newly printed dollars into the financial system to shore up almost every aspect of the nation's financial system. Investors were bailed out, banks were bailed out, but that avalanche of money somehow didn't make its way into worker wages – arguably the most important measure of all.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, in data from 2007-2014 all workers except those with advanced degrees actually lost ground in inflation adjusted ("real") terms, and even those with advanced degrees didn't experience any wage gains – they just didn't lose ground like everyone else!

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Womack Weekly Commentary: September 18, 2017

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