<story><title>Why Can’t Americans Get a Raise?</title><url>http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2017/07/why_can_t_americans_get_a_raise.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>randomdata</author><text>The most obvious answer seems to be that the workforce keeps growing relative to the demand for that work. Wage stagnation began at the same time the number of women in the workplace started to grow. While a corresponding increase in demand with the supply of workers would have kept incomes moving upward, women were actually already consumers. They had to eat, be sheltered and clothed, etc. even when men made up the vast majority of the workforce.&lt;p&gt;The rate of the growing female workforce itself started to stagnant around the 90s and 2000s, but a new worker had fully emerged on the scene by that point: The robot. It&amp;#x27;s a slight misconception that robots eliminate jobs. In reality, they compete for them just like people do. They are another worker in the supply of workers. And while robots bring new demand, as they didn&amp;#x27;t exist before, it is not proportional to what they can create like with humans.&lt;p&gt;And so, increasing supply over the rate of what increases to demand exist, and you get downward price pressure.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sharemywin</author><text>Except the article cites several examples of where demand isn&amp;#x27;t being met.&lt;p&gt;-Farmers in Alabama are fretting that crops may rot in the ground for a lack of workers to bring in the harvest.&lt;p&gt;-Despite high demand, home builders in Colorado are throttling back activity because they can’t find the workers to erect frames.&lt;p&gt;-An airline canceled flights because it couldn’t find enough pilots to steer them.&lt;p&gt;Those aren&amp;#x27;t demand problem but supply problems.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Can’t Americans Get a Raise?</title><url>http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2017/07/why_can_t_americans_get_a_raise.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>randomdata</author><text>The most obvious answer seems to be that the workforce keeps growing relative to the demand for that work. Wage stagnation began at the same time the number of women in the workplace started to grow. While a corresponding increase in demand with the supply of workers would have kept incomes moving upward, women were actually already consumers. They had to eat, be sheltered and clothed, etc. even when men made up the vast majority of the workforce.&lt;p&gt;The rate of the growing female workforce itself started to stagnant around the 90s and 2000s, but a new worker had fully emerged on the scene by that point: The robot. It&amp;#x27;s a slight misconception that robots eliminate jobs. In reality, they compete for them just like people do. They are another worker in the supply of workers. And while robots bring new demand, as they didn&amp;#x27;t exist before, it is not proportional to what they can create like with humans.&lt;p&gt;And so, increasing supply over the rate of what increases to demand exist, and you get downward price pressure.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Lagged2Death</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Wage stagnation began at the same time the number of women in the workplace started to grow ... The rate of the growing female workforce itself started to stagnant around the 90s and 2000s...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Have a look over here:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dol.gov&amp;#x2F;wb&amp;#x2F;stats&amp;#x2F;facts_over_time.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dol.gov&amp;#x2F;wb&amp;#x2F;stats&amp;#x2F;facts_over_time.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The US ratio of female&amp;#x2F;male employment experienced a strong long-term upward trend during and after WWII (1940s), and the absolute number of women working jobs in the US has climbed steadily right to the present day.&lt;p&gt;The modern era of wage stagnation relative to productivity started in the 1970s, somewhat &lt;i&gt;before&lt;/i&gt; the strongest growth in the female&amp;#x2F;male employment ratio, and continuing even after that ratio flattened out.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.epi.org&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;ib388-figurea.jpg.538&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.epi.org&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;ib388-figurea.jpg.538&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.epi.org&amp;#x2F;publication&amp;#x2F;charting-wage-stagnation&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.epi.org&amp;#x2F;publication&amp;#x2F;charting-wage-stagnation&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;...a corresponding increase in demand with the supply of workers would have kept incomes moving upward...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or it could send jobs overseas to poor countries with low wages and little in the way of labor or environmental regulation.</text></comment>