Re:America is building chip factories. Now to find the workers
by mech765 on Friday August 25, 2023 @08:11AM
(#37260803)
Real wages have risen over the last 50 years.
Re:America is building chip factories. Now to find the workers
by wildrhythms on Friday August 25, 2023 @08:33AM
(#37260971)
It's about purchasing power; not just real wages.
>despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...
Re:America is building chip factories. Now to find the workers
by gottorf on Friday August 25, 2023 @10:31AM
(#37262145)
> It's about purchasing power; not just real wages.
Real wage means purchasing power parity, or it should. These two statements cannot be true, if they are using the same definition of inflation:
- Real wages have risen over the past 50 years
- Today's real average wage has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago
The methodology must be different.
But yes, inequality has also gone up as you point out. Raising other people's salaries is probably the best way to deal with this while staying in the current paradigm. Although raising chip worker wages isn't going to change inequality - you'd have to apply this to other jobs like retail, food service, custodial, etc.