See if that makes any improvement in wage growth.

has been explosive - What's the mystery?

They attacked the unions and have been 100% pro business on ever issue.

A bumper sticker I saw once:

The Labor Movement: The folks who brought you the weekend.

goes out and nobody knows why' (Bill O'Lielly)

Why rich people don't like to pay workers

have spent billions over the last century to avoid paying workers and trying to turn the US back to a plantation economy.

They are Traitors and despicable people in general.

Corporations will resist doing so....

Some salaries will increase.... but in my experience, many companies would rather run short-handed than increase wages significantly. to make the hires they need. For example, there is a factory close to me that wanted to hire master welders for $14/HR. That's crazy. They got a few takers, but they rand WAY short-handed for a year before raising the wage to $19/hr. And even that is WAY below what the going rate. But the goal is to reduce the going rate, even for a skilled worker, like a master welder.

It’s like all the studies that show tax cuts do not lead to wage increases are true!

Republicans and their dupes have sought to systematically dismantle organized labor. Their reasoning was that unions result in unrealistically high wages and benefits and that this was/is leading to the failure of businesses.

It seems obvious to anyone looking on that the their goal, then, was to suppress wages and benefits. And it has worked! Cpmanies are profitable. In the absence of any organized effort to direct some of those profits to the pockets of workers, the profits have, as they are wont to do, found their way to the pockets of CEO's and share holders.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Democrats need to start LOUDLY asking why wages are not going up.... and then provide the answer: Because this is always what the GOP intended with its anti-labor efforts.

Companies feel like they have to maximize this quarter's earnings and only think short term. Instead of investing in their employees as a long term resource, it's about how cheaply they can operate today. Or how much illegal things they can get away with like Enron or more recently Wells Fargo.

with the biggest drop being in the 80s with Reagan and then Bush Sr.

However, household incomes at almost all levels rose under both Reagan in the 1980s and Clinton in the 1990s. They flattened under both Bush Jr and Obama, though ticked up a bit at the end of the Obama administration.

If the decline in unions was the driving force behind poor wage growth, it would have affected things more in the 80s and into the 90s than in the late 90s and into the 2000s.

The biggest problem in wage growth is that we have done nothing major for infrastructure in the country since before Reagan. Early in the Bush Jr years, economists reported that the US need somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 trillion in infrastructure improvements/upgrades to get the US economy ready for the 21st century. Several years later, we get the stimulus package from Obama that had maybe 1/10 or 1/8 of that recommended amount for infrastructure.

If we had put the recommended money towards infrastructure, it would have created several million well paying blue collar and middle class jobs in construction, building & repairing bridges, roads, railways, airports, dams, etc as well as improving our electrical grid, water supplies, etc. And, these programs don't have overnight - they take years to complete them all, so people would have had steady jobs for 6, 8 or 10 years or more.

The number of people in unions in 1983 was 2 and half times the number in 2016.

The linked chart shows a steady decline through the years, but the wages were healthier when there were more unions than when there were less.

Average, non-college educated workers can not bargain individually. In order to have good wages, family sustaining benefits and a seat at the table in their work place, only unions and collective bargaining can achieve that. Any other smoke screen bullshit just gets people to lose sight of the ball. Generally, every state with strong unions have better living wages and benefits than those without. That's just a fact

Link;
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/union-membership-rate-10-point-7-percent-in-2016.htm

As unions decreased in density, the middle class shrunk. A small bump during years in which the remaining unions got a favorable Labor Board and friendly administration under Clinton, but still suffered under a Republican controlled congress on legislation. Decreased again under Bush and small bump under Obama and Dem congress for 2 years. But, the trajectory of wages for middle class and low wage earners, as you have shown here, is downward as unions decreased in density.

It's really is not that complicated. Strong unions, strong middle class. Weak unions, weak middle class.

I live in Massachusetts. Strong Unions, Strong middle Class. See, quite simple.

Same was true during the internet boom times of the nineties as well, btw. Incredibly low unemployment rates, but virtually no wage growth.

we might start to move the needle on wage growth. Not exactly a mystery. Nor part of the Republican platform.

at how many under employed people we have rather than just assuming that the low unemployment means no one’s looking for a job and needs incentives to move.

As far no no qualified people... I’m not buying it. Job hunting today means meeting 25 requirements that a potential employer has decided are essential in order to hire a person that requires no training whatsoever. Most entry level jobs today could be taught to a high school graduate.

He clearly does not have the expertise required to understand the already analyzed data regarding the overall cost of off-shoring jobs.

He doesn't have to do any work. He has access to databases full of peer reviewed econometric papers.

If this is a "puzzle", he's incompetent.

We used to get MW increases about 8-9 times per decade. Shit was pretty good back then. We've had what, two increases this century?

think old Robber Baron political control, child labor, wide open immigration, industrial 'automation'

Now, corporate political control, promotion of automation, many green cards, back door immigration, etc.

Corporations and Business owners won’t raise wages unless they have to; one of the many reasons strong unions are critical for a thriving middle class.