Most of us by now have seen the wage charts that show that single worker wages have been stagnant over the last generation or more, and many by now will even have seen the charts showing that wages for 20-something men have declined relative to their fathers (and relative to 20-something women).
Well, there’s a slight problem in how these statistics have calculated. Their based off the size of the labor force, a technical term in economics that includes all of those who are working and all of those who are looking for work. Those who have given up actively looking for work (generally because they can’t find it) aren’t counted. But the percentage of working age men that make up the labor force is significantly smaller than it was a generation ago, as many men (and women) have given up the search in our dire economic times where there are seven applicants on average for every job opening. Incidentally, this is also the reason why real unemployment is much bigger than the numbers being reported in the news. Economists, in general, are well aware of this and typically account for it. Our wonderful media? Not so much.
It turns out that once you account for this (by comparing all working age men), median male wages haven’t just stagnated, they’ve dropped – and by a huge margin. Take a look at the chart for yourself.
Welcome to the future.
