Steve Randy Waldman[new draft post] Why does wage compression underwhelm? https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/03/25/why-does-wage-compression-underwhelm/index.html
Kent Willard@interfluidity I think a lot of growth in the lower wage cohort is from those with higher job mobility. For example, those with lower wages who are older or in a small city or rural area won't change employers or industries. Their employers know it, so their raises are small.
Alon@kentwillard @interfluidity That's every wage increase, though. Growth doesn't mean everyone gets the same 2% real wage increase; it means more productive workers get more. The problem is when populists have latched onto the least productive workers (e.g. ones who won't move to opportunity) as the representatives of the real working class.
@Alon @kentwillard If we are concerned abt welfare, we are concerned abt the welfare of all the humans, not just those willing or able to move to opportunity under current circumstance, even if that wld increase their productivity. If we are concerned abt democratic politics, we are concerned about the humans in proportion to their numbers, and if the fraction willing or able to move to opportunity is modest, don't blame "populism" for the bankruptcy of a politics that slights the place-bound.
@Alon @kentwillard None of this prejudices the solution space. One way to address the disconnect is to make it easier for people to live the dynamism imagined of homo economicus. Another way is to reshape productivity, so that, for example, geographical dynamism is less necessary because remote work. Lots of possibilities!
@Alon @kentwillard But if most of the working class still live within 15 miles of their parents, any "populism" — any functional democracy — will put a great deal of weight on those people as "representatives of the real working class".
@interfluidity @kentwillard *All* reduction in inequality involved moving to opportunity, it was just once called urbanization and today it's called moving to a different city.
The idea that "most of the working class still live within 15 miles of their parents" is just wrong. It comes from a single survey of American women over the age of 50 asking them where their children lived; it's been publicized way past its statistical power precisely because it moralizes against migration.
@interfluidity @kentwillard In contrast with the one commercial survey of American women over 50, you can look at rates of interstate migration in the US, which are tracked regularly by the census and by the IRS. Around half of the US population comprises immigrants and interstate migrants, and the highest proportions of interstate migrants are in growing Sunbelt and Western states.
@Alon @kentwillard No one is moralizing against migration. Migration is great, for those who will do it. What we are moralizing against, and should moralize against, is apologizing for bad outcomes for those who do not or will not. Sure, there can be economic incentive to "move to opportunity", but failing to do so should not mean life in an opioid-ridden hellhole. It is nothing other than democracy that is punishing us for tolerating that for so long.