Wage Stagnation: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

The canonical layperson deep-dive on the wage-productivity 'decoupling' graph. Systematically works through every candidate explanation — health insurance, demographics, inflation-index mismeasurement (Feldstein), labor-vs-capital inequality, wage inequality, technology, and policy (deunionization/CEO-pay/taxation) — quoting across the ideological spectrum (EPI/Heritage/Fed) and engaging Summers-Stansbury, then lands on a quantified (explicitly low-confidence) breakdown: ~half the apparent decoupling is measurement artifacts, the real ~50% is mostly wage inequality (taxation/corporate governance) + labor-capital inequality, less about technology. Plus the meta-observation that 1973 is over-weighted (graphs start at 1950; the Oil-Crisis/Bretton-Woods discombobulation).

Quality 79 · Excellent. High-Excellent: an exceptionally thorough, numerate, even-handed synthesis of a genuinely hard and contested topic — the reference many readers point to on wage decoupling — honest about uncertainty and productive of a real quantified conclusion. Top MMTYWTK tier, scored on merit. 79.

Claude’s paradigm shift 52 · Moderate. A comprehensive synthesis/review that updated many readers ('half of it is measurement'), but builds on existing economists' work rather than defining a new frame. B52.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. A widely-cited, genuinely influential explainer that shaped how the tech/rationalist sphere understands wage stagnation on a major policy topic. RWI3.