Share of all wages (selected years) and percentage-point change in share of total wages over time, by wage group, 1979–2022
| Share of wages | Long-term | Pandemic labor market | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 1979 | 1989 | 2000 | 2007 | 2019 | 2021 | 2022 | 1979–2019 | 1979–2022 | 2021-2022 | 2019-2022 |
| Bottom 90% | 69.8% | 65.2% | 60.8% | 60.0% | 60.1% | 58.6% | 60.1% | -9.7% | -9.7% | 1.6% | 0.0% |
| 90th-99th | 22.9% | 23.8% | 25.6% | 26.2% | 27.0% | 26.8% | 27.0% | 4.1% | 4.1% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 90th–95th | 10.8% | 10.7% | 11.3% | 11.5% | 11.8% | 11.5% | 11.7% | 1.0% | 0.9% | 0.1% | -0.1% |
| 95th–99th | 12.1% | 13.1% | 14.2% | 14.7% | 15.2% | 15.3% | 15.3% | 3.1% | 3.2% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Upper 5% | 19.4% | 24.1% | 27.9% | 28.4% | 28.1% | 29.9% | 28.2% | 8.7% | 8.8% | -1.7% | 0.1% |
| Upper 1% | 7.3% | 11.0% | 13.7% | 13.7% | 12.9% | 14.6% | 12.9% | 5.6% | 5.6% | -1.7% | 0.0% |
| 99.0th–99.9th | 5.7% | 7.6% | 8.2% | 8.4% | 8.2% | 8.7% | 8.2% | 2.5% | 2.5% | -0.4% | 0.1% |
| 99.9th–100th | 1.6% | 3.4% | 5.4% | 5.3% | 4.7% | 5.9% | 4.6% | 3.1% | 3.0% | -1.3% | -0.1% |
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.