[slg]

And by "real wages" you mean "Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over". You chose a number that specifically factored out the negatives like dropping participation rate[1] and underemployment (couldn't find the isolated number for underemployment in 30 seconds of googling, so here's one that's tempered by including unemployment too)[2]. It also glosses over the heart of the problem by using median. If 38% of the population suddenly had their wages drop to $0, it wouldn't show up when looking at the median values.

I also don't see why you're citing the nominal federal minimum wage. The nominal value is totally irrelevant to the conversation. $1 is still nominally $1, but according to the link it is also now $0.51 in purchasing power.

[1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART/

[2] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/u6rate

[JumpCrisscross]

> by "real wages" you mean "Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over"

Yes.

> You chose a number that specifically factored out the negatives like dropping participation rate[1] and underemployment

I chose a consistent dataset. One of many. (Dropping participation rate is affected by stuff like demographics in addition to underemployment.)

If you have a credible source that shows declining real wages since 2000, I'd love to see it.

> don't see why you're citing the nominal federal minimum wage. The nominal value is totally irrelevant to the conversation. $1 is still nominally $1, but according to the link it is also now $0.51 in purchasing power

If $1 is 51¢ today, then $1.40 is 71¢ today. Rising nominal wages is how real wage gains are generated.

[slg]

>If you have a credible source that shows declining real wages since 2000, I'd love to see it.

My original comment was about growing inequality and my second comment was describing why the metric you cited and median real wages in general don't address that issue. So no, I will not be looking for a better real wages metric, because it is not the appropriate measure to capture inequality. You can find plenty of numbers and charts on that problem here[1].

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...

[JumpCrisscross]

> So no, I will not be looking for a better real wages metric, because it is not the appropriate measure to capture inequality

Got it, your complaints about real wages were entirely a non sequitur.

[slg]

This is legitimately one of the strangest responses I have ever gotten on HN. You brought real wages into the conversation. My complaints weren't a non sequitur, they were a direct response to you. Now you're criticizing me for engaging with what you said? I guess I should have refused to engage from the start, but you know the proverb about the second best time to plant a tree, so I'm done with this conversation.

[JumpCrisscross]

I guess I didn't see the inequality focus in your first comment. At least, not beyond the qualitative assets as cash and sundries vs assets as financial assets. I pointed out that real wages are up in response to your claim about people being paid dollars. (The dollars we're paid are worth more. They're individually less. But the total take home is more. Hence real wage.) I think it's a non sequitur to then turn around and say well I was actually arguing about inequality from the start.