Date: 2025-01-15 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021694
INEQUALITY
INCOME GROWTH OVER TIME
Massive change for period 1946-1980 to 1980-2014
INCOME GROWTH OVER TIME
Massive change for period 1946-1980 to 1980-2014
Burgess COMMENTARY
This graphic is enormously important. Economists of my generation seem to appreciate the importance of this more than younger economists, behavioral scientists, social activists and academics.
It has been my observation over a very long time in many different situations around the world that people are pretty happy when things are getting better, and seriously unhappy when things are getting worse.
For the 35 years to 1980 things were getting better for most people in the United States
For the 35 years from 1980 to 2014 thing have been getting worse for most people in the United States ... and this has continued from 2014 to the present.
Most of this has, in my opinion, come about because of the growing embrace of economic financialization during the past fifty years. The OPEC oil shock of 1973 changed global economics in very fundamental ways increasing the cost of production very substantially, and making the established industrial base much less competitive than it had been up to thie point.
Peter Burgess