Share of all wages and percentage-point change in share of total wages over time, by wage group, 1979–2023
Share of wages | Long-term change | Pandemic business cycle change | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year | 1979 | 1989 | 2000 | 2007 | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 1979–2019 | 1979–2023 | 2022–2023 | 2019–2023 |
Bottom 90% | 69.8% | 65.2% | 60.8% | 60.0% | 60.1% | 60.1% | 60.7% | -9.7% | -9.1% | 0.6% | 0.6% |
90th–99th percentile | 22.9% | 23.8% | 25.6% | 26.2% | 27.0% | 27.0% | 26.9% | 4.1% | 4.0% | -0.1% | -0.1% |
90th–95th percentile | 10.8% | 10.7% | 11.3% | 11.5% | 11.8% | 11.7% | 11.7% | 1.0% | 0.9% | 0.0% | -0.1% |
95th–99th percentile | 12.1% | 13.1% | 14.2% | 14.7% | 15.2% | 15.3% | 15.2% | 3.1% | 3.1% | -0.1% | 0.0% |
Upper 5% | 19.4% | 24.1% | 27.9% | 28.4% | 28.1% | 28.2% | 27.6% | 8.7% | 8.2% | -0.6% | -0.5% |
Upper 1% | 7.3% | 11.0% | 13.7% | 13.7% | 12.9% | 12.9% | 12.4% | 5.6% | 5.1% | -0.5% | -0.5% |
99.0th–99.9th percentile | 5.7% | 7.6% | 8.2% | 8.4% | 8.2% | 8.2% | 8.0% | 2.5% | 2.3% | -0.2% | -0.1% |
99.9th–100th percentile | 1.6% | 3.4% | 5.4% | 5.3% | 4.7% | 4.6% | 4.4% | 3.1% | 2.8% | -0.2% | -0.3% |
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.