Table 1
Role of minimum wage decline and erosion of unions on wage inequality , 1979–2017
| Percent of inequality metric explained by: | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inequality measure | Changes in wage measure | Minimum wage decline | Erosion of unions | Joint minimum wage and union impact |
| Men | ||||
| 90-10 | 0.32 | 36.3% | 27.3% | 58.7% |
| 90-50 | 0.33 | 1.8% | 37.3% | 39.1% |
| 50-10 | -0.01 | – | – | – |
| Std dev (log wages) | 0.12 | 23.7% | 28.8% | 53.4% |
| Gini | 0.08 | 13.9% | 36.7% | 49.4% |
| Women | ||||
| 90-10 | 0.49 | 34.0% | 4.3% | 38.0% |
| 90-50 | 0.28 | 3.6% | 13.0% | 17.0% |
| 50-10 | 0.21 | 73.6% | -6.6% | 65.0% |
| Std dev (log wages) | 0.16 | 20.9% | 6.7% | 28.0% |
| Gini | 0.10 | 18.6% | 8.8% | 27.0% |
Source: Analysis of Fortin, Lemieux, and Lloyd (2021).
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