Table 2
Share of all wages (selected years) and percentage-point change in share of total wages over time, by wage group, 1979–2021
| Share of wages | Long-term (ppt. change) | Pandemic labor market (ppt. change) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 1979 | 1989 | 2000 | 2007 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 1979–2019 | 1979–2021 | 2020–2021 | 2019–2021 |
| Bottom 90% | 69.8% | 65.2% | 60.8% | 60.0% | 60.1% | 59.2% | 58.6% | -9.7% | -11.2% | -0.6% | -1.5% |
| 90th–99th percentile | 22.9% | 23.8% | 25.6% | 26.2% | 27.0% | 27.4% | 26.8% | 4.1% | 3.9% | -0.5% | -0.2% |
| 90th–95th | 10.8% | 10.7% | 11.3% | 11.5% | 11.8% | 11.9% | 11.5% | 1.0% | 0.7% | -0.3% | -0.2% |
| 95th–99th | 12.1% | 13.1% | 14.2% | 14.7% | 15.2% | 15.5% | 15.3% | 3.1% | 3.2% | -0.2% | 0.1% |
| Top 5% | 19.4% | 24.1% | 27.9% | 28.4% | 28.1% | 28.9% | 29.9% | 8.7% | 10.5% | 1.0% | 1.8% |
| Top 1% | 7.3% | 11.0% | 13.7% | 13.7% | 12.9% | 13.4% | 14.6% | 5.6% | 7.3% | 1.1% | 1.7% |
| 99.0th–99.9th | 5.7% | 7.6% | 8.2% | 8.4% | 8.2% | 8.4% | 8.7% | 2.5% | 3.0% | 0.3% | 0.5% |
| 99.9th–100th | 1.6% | 3.4% | 5.4% | 5.3% | 4.7% | 5.0% | 5.9% | 3.1% | 4.3% | 0.9% | 1.2% |
Source: EPI analysis of Kopczuk, Saez, and Song, “Uncovering the American Dream: Inequality and Mobility in Social Security Earnings Data Since 1937” (2007) and Social Security Administration wage statistics.
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