FOR POOREST, INCOME GROWTH NEAR ZERO

“In recent years, trends in average living standards interacted with rising income inequality to produce stagnant wages in the lower and middle income groups. . . . since 2000, the decline in average income growth was further exacerbated for the lowest income groups by a declining share of the total. So, for the bottom fifth, the growth in real income declined from 3 percent . . . to essentially zero in the last fifteen years. Of this catastrophic decline, about half was due to the slower overall growth, while half was due to rising inequality.”

William D. Nordhaus, “Why Growth Will Fall, New York Review of Books, August 18, 2016, page 66.