Question

are wages in the United States increasing or decreasing explain your answer

Answer 1

Wages in the United States are increasing faster almost every year. But this increase in wage rate is not same for rich and poor. It is higher for rich and lower for poor. Wage rate have been increasing faster for the top 5% of people, who are richer than for the bottom 20%, who are poorer. But in terms of percentage the growth of annual wage rate has been higher for the poor than for the rich in the last few years. United States Bureaucratic report says that wage rate in US increased 4.63% in Jan 2018, highest is 13.77% in Jan 1979 and lowest is -5.77% in March 2009.

This increase in wage growth is due to different reasons :

1) There is low unemployment which push the wage rate to increase.

2) Minimum wage hikes raised income of the poor people.

3) Inflation adjusted wage growth was higher from 2007 - 2017.

4) There is wage growth during the great recession among rich earners but since it has become more broadly shared.

More precisely, it can be said that wage rate has been increasing for all, but for poor the growth is small and for reach it is large, generating a wide gap between two groups of people.