By James Pethokoukis

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Joe Biden patted himself on the back for his administration’s efforts to reinvigorate “an economy that hasn’t worked for the working people of this nation for too long.” The last 40 years have been characterized by “trickle-down” economic policy, slow growth, and “lower wages,” the president said.

Of course, wages have moved up — not down — in recent decades, even for working people. Looking back at the past three decades, my AEI colleague Michael Strain finds that real median wages have increased by a quarter since 1990. And wage gains have been even better for Americans earning less than the median. Workers at the 10th percentile, those earning less than 90 percent of all workers, saw their wages rise 36 percent since 1990. And over that period wages increased by 34 percent and 29 percent, respectively, for workers at the 20th and 30th percentiles.

This chart from Strain’s 2020 book “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It),” shows the wage gains for the working class after inflation:

The post Chart of the day: Wage growth for workers appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.