
Lawrence Mishel
Economist
1
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Jun 9, 2026
The Policy Choices That Suppressed American Wages (with Josh Bivens and Larry Mishel)
22:15
22:30
22:44
22:54
23:04

Larry MishelGUEST
Uh, where we think the minimum wage had its biggest impact is that we think it devastated the bottom third, and it accounts for all, basically most of or all of the inequality that emerged between a low-wage worker and a middle-wage worker.

Larry MishelGUEST
Because that mostly happened in the 1980s when the minimum wage was frozen, inflation was high, and basically, by the end of the 1980s, the minimum wage was not affecting anybody's wage.

Larry MishelGUEST
Some people might think that the minimum wa- uh, minimum wage had, if it had been indexed, like, productivity would have really affected the, the median wage, and that would be, uh, a different thing.

Larry MishelGUEST
But what we think are the, the largest, uh, are the ones that Josh talked about, which were the corporate globalization, the erosion of unions, uh, the excessive unemployment.

Larry MishelGUEST
And those by themselves basically sabotaged the wages of a typical worker by at least $5 an hour.
9 MINS LATER
J
31:49Josh BivensGUEST
This is how you roll back inequality, and so I think that's been a big shift, and hopefully that will matter going forward.