Bernie Sanders on wages: what the evidence says · JRE #2341
SUBJECT: WAGES
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
wages are actually lower now than they were 52 years ago. Okay? And during that same period, period is a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90 percent to the top 1 percent.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
The first half overstates the data: Pew Research Center found that real average hourly earnings peaked in January 1973 and that today's average wage has roughly the same purchasing power it did in the mid-1970s, meaning real wages have been broadly flat rather than clearly lower (the exact sign depends on the series and endpoints chosen). The second half is well supported: a RAND Corporation working paper (Price and Edwards) found that from 1975 to 2018, if income growth had been shared as broadly as in the postwar decades, aggregate income for the bottom 90 percent would have been about 2.5 trillion dollars higher in 2018 alone, a cumulative gap that RAND later extended to roughly 79 trillion dollars in 2023 dollars flowing toward top earners. Note that RAND measures a shift in income, not wealth as Sanders phrased it. On balance the wage claim is exaggerated (real wages are roughly flat, not clearly lower) while the redistribution claim is accurate, so the statement is Mixed.