This year continued the economic recovery from the Great Recession. But while the economy has had 21 consecutive months with unemployment at or below 4%, the top line numbers do not tell the whole story. In 2019, workers finally started to see to some wage gains, but it is going to take much more to raise living standards for wide swaths of the workforce.
EPI’s Top Charts of 2019 tells the story of how working people are doing in today’s economy. After a slow recovery from the Great Recession, we are quickly resuming our prerecession course of rising economic inequality—which has been worse for black workers. By weakening workers’ ability to collectively bargain, refusing to raise a stagnant federal minimum wage, and giving out tax breaks to the richest Americans, policymakers have contributed to this increasing economic divide.
On the bright side, we see from the evidence that progressive policies like the Fed’s prioritizing of full employment and states raising minimum wages do make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. And striking teachers have shown that calling attention to austerity—in their case, the disinvestment in America’s schools—can bring about real change.
EPI’s Top Charts of 2019 tells the story of the year in images. The 13 charts and maps are interactive, embeddable, and can be easily shared on social media.
View all 13 charts on epi.org.
The current ‘recovery’ hasn’t done much for wages of college grads and has done nothing for black college grads: Real average wage growth, workers with a bachelor's degree, 1996–2000 and 2015–2019
| Demographic | 1996–2000 | 2015–2019 |
|---|---|---|
| Men | 10.9% | 7.8% |
| Women | 9.8% | 3.0% |
| White | 10.6% | 6.6% |
| Black | 11.5% | -0.3% |
Note: In order to include data from the first half of 2019, all years refer to the 12-month period ending in June. Sample includes workers with a bachelor’s degree only.
Source: Reproduced from Figure A in Elise Gould and Valerie Wilson, Wage Growth Is Weak for a Tight Labor Market—and the Pace of Wage Growth Is Uneven Across Race and Gender, Economic Policy Institute, August 2019.
Source: Reproduced from Figure A in Elise Gould and Valerie Wilson, Wage Growth is Weak for a Tight Labor Market—and the Pace of Wage Growth is Uneven Across Race and Gender, Economic Policy Institute, August 2019. Data are from authors’ analysis of Current Population Survey basic monthly microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau.
As union membership declines, income inequality increases: Union membership and share of income going to the top 10%, 1917–2017
| Year | Union membership | Share of income going to the top 10% |
|---|---|---|
| 1917 | 11.0% | 40.3% |
| 1918 | 12.1% | 39.9% |
| 1919 | 14.3% | 39.5% |
| 1920 | 17.5% | 38.1% |
| 1921 | 17.6% | 42.9% |
| 1922 | 14.0% | 42.9% |
| 1923 | 11.7% | 40.6% |
| 1924 | 11.3% | 43.3% |
| 1925 | 11.0% | 44.2% |
| 1926 | 10.7% | 44.1% |
| 1927 | 10.6% | 44.7% |
| 1928 | 10.4% | 46.1% |
| 1929 | 10.1% | 43.8% |
| 1930 | 10.7% | 43.1% |
| 1931 | 11.2% | 44.4% |
| 1932 | 11.3% | 46.3% |
| 1933 | 9.5% | 45.0% |
| 1934 | 9.8% | 45.2% |
| 1935 | 10.8% | 43.4% |
| 1936 | 11.1% | 44.8% |
| 1937 | 18.6% | 43.3% |
| 1938 | 23.9% | 43.0% |
| 1939 | 24.8% | 44.6% |
| 1940 | 23.5% | 44.4% |
| 1941 | 25.4% | 41.0% |
| 1942 | 24.2% | 35.5% |
| 1943 | 30.1% | 32.7% |
| 1944 | 32.5% | 31.5% |
| 1945 | 33.4% | 32.6% |
| 1946 | 31.9% | 34.6% |
| 1947 | 31.1% | 33.0% |
| 1948 | 30.5% | 33.7% |
| 1949 | 29.6% | 33.8% |
| 1950 | 30.0% | 33.9% |
| 1951 | 32.4% | 32.8% |
| 1952 | 31.5% | 32.1% |
| 1953 | 33.2% | 31.4% |
| 1954 | 32.7% | 32.1% |
| 1955 | 32.9% | 31.8% |
| 1956 | 33.2% | 31.8% |
| 1957 | 32.0% | 31.7% |
| 1958 | 31.1% | 32.1% |
| 1959 | 31.6% | 32.0% |
| 1960 | 30.7% | 31.7% |
| 1961 | 28.7% | 31.9% |
| 1962 | 29.1% | 32.0% |
| 1963 | 28.5% | 32.0% |
| 1964 | 28.5% | 31.6% |
| 1965 | 28.6% | 31.5% |
| 1966 | 28.7% | 32.0% |
| 1967 | 28.6% | 32.0% |
| 1968 | 28.7% | 32.0% |
| 1969 | 28.3% | 31.8% |
| 1970 | 27.9% | 31.5% |
| 1971 | 27.4% | 31.8% |
| 1972 | 27.5% | 31.6% |
| 1973 | 27.1% | 31.9% |
| 1974 | 26.5% | 32.4% |
| 1975 | 25.7% | 32.6% |
| 1976 | 25.7% | 32.4% |
| 1977 | 25.2% | 32.4% |
| 1978 | 24.7% | 32.4% |
| 1979 | 25.4% | 32.3% |
| 1980 | 23.6% | 32.9% |
| 1981 | 22.3% | 32.7% |
| 1982 | 21.6% | 33.2% |
| 1983 | 21.4% | 33.7% |
| 1984 | 20.5% | 33.9% |
| 1985 | 19.0% | 34.3% |
| 1986 | 18.5% | 34.6% |
| 1987 | 17.9% | 36.5% |
| 1988 | 17.6% | 38.6% |
| 1989 | 17.2% | 38.5% |
| 1990 | 16.7% | 38.8% |
| 1991 | 16.2% | 38.4% |
| 1992 | 16.2% | 39.8% |
| 1993 | 16.2% | 39.5% |
| 1994 | 16.1% | 39.6% |
| 1995 | 15.3% | 40.5% |
| 1996 | 14.9% | 41.2% |
| 1997 | 14.7% | 41.7% |
| 1998 | 14.2% | 42.1% |
| 1999 | 13.9% | 42.7% |
| 2000 | 13.5% | 43.1% |
| 2001 | 13.5% | 42.2% |
| 2002 | 13.3% | 42.4% |
| 2003 | 12.9% | 42.8% |
| 2004 | 12.5% | 43.6% |
| 2005 | 12.5% | 44.9% |
| 2006 | 12.0% | 45.5% |
| 2007 | 12.1% | 45.7% |
| 2008 | 12.4% | 46.0% |
| 2009 | 12.3% | 45.5% |
| 2010 | 11.9% | 46.4% |
| 2011 | 11.8% | 46.6% |
| 2012 | 11.2% | 47.8% |
| 2013 | 11.2% | 46.7% |
| 2014 | 11.1% | 46.9% |
| 2015 | 11.1% | 47.2% |
| 2016 | 10.7% | 47.4% |
| 2017 | 10.7% | 47.9% |
Source: Reproduced from Figure A in Heidi Shierholz, Working People Have Been Thwarted in Their Efforts to Bargain for Better Wages by Attacks on Unions, Economic Policy Institute, August 2019.
Source: Reproduced from Figure A in Heidi Shierholz, Working People Have Been Thwarted in Their Efforts to Bargain for Better Wages by Attacks on Unions, Economic Policy Institute, August 2019. Data on union density follows the composite series found in Historical Statistics of the United States; updated to 2017 from unionstats.com. Income inequality (share of income to top 10%) data are from Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, “Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 1 (2003) and updated data from the Top Income Database, updated March 2019.