Edit:
Actually looking at this a little more, take the year 2000 (all inflation adjusted numbers.)
The lowest fifth of workers have seen wages fall 8.6%. The second fifth of workers have seen wages fall 2.42% in that time, the third fifth has seen wages only rise 0.45%. This is not what I would call a strong time period for workers.
Picking less than half the country population, ignoring the high end, treating small growth as insignificant, then complaining that the result is not the growth you wish it were, is terrible analysis.
Instead of picking 2 dates out of 50, look at all dates. 2016 was the highest avg for the lowest quintile for all years back though 1967 except 1999,2000,2001. So out of 50, its #46, at 96% of all time high, has been increasing since the recession, and is headed to record highs. The same trend is true of each quintile.
shows the bifurcation of outcomes, you can't just ignore that for half the people incomes haven't been rising
>ignoring the high end
This is literally how your previous comment begins: "Lowest incomes, even inflation adjusted, certainly have been rising"
All I'm doing is demonstrating that no, they haven't really.
>treating small growth as insignificant
I'm literally giving examples of negative growth...
>2016 was the highest avg for the lowest quintile for all years back though 1967 except 1999,2000,2001.
Are we looking at the same graph? I see 2016 as being 12,943 for the lowest quintile. These years all beat that:
2008 $12,994
2007 $13,371
2006 $13,513
2005 $13,095
2004 $13,016
2003 $13,044
2002 $13,333
2001 $13,740
2000 $14,161
1999 $14,293
1998 $13,578
1997 $13,189
1996 $13,103
1995 $13,061
1989 $13,075
>has been increasing since the recession
Now who's picking advantageous dates? Wages have been growing since the biggest downturn since the depression? Duh, but they've never caught up to where they were before.
>at 96% of all time high
It's at 99% of what it was way back in 1989, we can even move past the boom years in 2000/2001, in 2003 and 2004 wages were higher than they are now for this quintile. That's not really endearing to the idea of wage growth.
EDIT: I realize that no, we're not looking at the same data, you're looking at the maximum on the range that is included in the lowest quintile whereas I'm looking at the mean of the lowest quintile. Table H-3. I believe mean is obviously going to be a better measure than upper limit of the range.
Yes, that's how averages work. You similarly cannot ignore that for more than half, wages rose, which is why the numbers have increased. And usually bifurcation means bimodal, which in this case is not likely.
>Now who's picking advantageous dates?
I listed multiple times now what happens when you use all data. The example that there has been recent growth counters your claim of picking two dates from 50 and making claims about the whole.
In fact, I suspect that since the last few years have seen median overall wages rising (2015 or so was the highest growth ever recorded for median wage), that once the numbers for the past two years are tallied, new records will be set.
>Are we looking at the same graph?
No. I quoted exactly what graph the Census data was in with my first post. You keep picking other ones.
>I believe mean is obviously going to be a better measure than upper limit of the range
Not likely since we're already taking the lower quintile of the range of all income. Mean loses a info due to skew, which is why most discussions about wages should focus on the median. Since we don't have the median (well, you can possibly find the decile cutoffs to get it), looking at cutoffs tells you that more income has flowed into the bottom than before, since the cutoff is higher.
The lowest income bracket contains a lot of retirees, who have no income, but have wealth. It also includes students, that have little income, but likely will have wealth in the future. These zeros and low values will pull the mean down, likely much lower than the median. So they count in this case as poor, but they are not. Since the boomers are retiring, this pulls the mean down, but is not representative of what those at the 20% mark of income earn, which is a better measure, since you're not seeing averaged effects. You see the exact measure at a fixed position in the queue.
Similarly, at the high end, taking the mean is nor representative because a few high income earners can skew the mean higher than the median. This is why the ends of the distribution are better served by median (which we don't have), or cutoffs (which is basically a median, but at 20% instead of 50%).
To demonstrate this quite conclusively, here's [1] BLS data on expenditures by quintile for 2016. The bottom quintile has a mean of $11k as in your numbers, but has mean annual expenditures of $25k, well over twice the mean income. Note the other 4 quntiles have mean expenditures more in line with the income.
This is why mean, especially at then ends, is pretty screwy. These people have low incomes, but are not poor.
2001: 24,361
2016: 24,002
1979: 21,594
2014: 21,728
Instead of cherry-picking dates to suit a narrative, looking at all data, the 2016 income was higher than any year back to 1966 except the 3 years 1999,2000,2001. So of the 50ish years in the data, 2016 ranks in the top 4, and is 96% of the all time high. The trend since the recession is increasing, and if not for the recession, would probably be at all time highs. I would not be surprised if once 2017 or 2018 numbers were in all time values will be reached.
So yes, wages are increasing.
One reason low end stays mostly flat is it includes all people just starting careers, who have no skills, so it's not unreasonable that the inflation adjusted value they provide is not tremendously increased. Looking at values over this time frame also needs demographics figured in for this reason, and as the workforce becomes younger, wages are expected to become lower, while each individual person at point X in a career still has higher wages. Census reports cover this.
Remember avg wages are static snapshots of a moving cohort.
Basically take 22,000 * a function of unemployment rate and the data is flat over time.
PS: Looking at the highest income for a quintile also says very little about it as everyonone is making less than that. You really want the median of the quintile or the average of everyone within that range.
As such, the quintile, which is also a median (of the bottom 40%), is a good measure. Plus I presented data for it - if you want another metric show the data.
Another quite relevant factor, as I showed above, is as boomers retire, the bottom gets pulled down by people that are not poor. Given that this demographic has swelled the ranks of the bottom quintile over the recent decades, that the pay has slightly increased means for the truly poor the pay has increased even more than listed in this number.
The evidence from the BLS I gave above shows that the mean income in the bottom quintile is ~$11K, but the mean expenditures are ~$25k. This is because of retirees, as can be found in Census and BLS reports with some digging.
Factor that in :)
Maybe you have some large scale data you'd like to share?
[1] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...