Politics

I'm saying the last couple of years is an illusion. As soon as things get back to normal economically, the inequity will continue its march.

And yes, mid to post pandemic saw rising wages. 1 million+ died, 3.5-4 million retired. When the restrictions loosened up, what was the big problem? "No one wants to work!!!" Because a lot of people took those relief checks and retrained themselves. When the low wage jobs could go back to normal, most of those former low wage workers had already found other, higher paying jobs. Eventually even the most stubborn restaurants or retail jobs raised wages to compete. Remember everyone complaining that low skilled McDonald's workers making $15/hr? Or did you conveniently forget the last 4 years to argue with an idiot on the internet?

What do you mean by this?

I mean what I said.

Wage: A regular payment, usually on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis, made by an employer to an employee, especially for manual or unskilled work.

Income: The amount of money or its equivalent received during a period of time in exchange for labor or services (note: this is wages), from the sale of goods or property, or as profit from financial investments (these last 2 are not wages).

Wages are a subset of income, and for the rich, not the primary source of income. Saying that the wage disparity has decreased by a single-digit percentage compared against inflation, is not the same as saying that income disparity has decreased, because other income sources than wages (primarily investment income) are where the top-earners have seen most of their wealth growth.

Source?

Both of those articles are about wages, not income. Also, your Politico source is from May 2023, and notes:

Now, however, those gains are in jeopardy, as the government moves to end bipartisan pandemic-era spending that injected trillions of dollars into the economy, spurred consumer spending and put workers in ultra-high demand.

That did in fact play out over the past year. Also, huge rounds of layoffs across the country at the tail end of 2023 and beginning of 2024 have been forcing people to cut into savings during their ensuing job hunts.

Here's one from Reuters about wealth inequality still increasing, as of Feb 2024, though this one is especially breaking down the inequality by race:

While all groups saw gains in net worth through the worst of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when federal fiscal programs offered expansive unemployment and other benefits, subsequent declines amid rising inflation and sagging financial markets hit Black families the hardest and pushed their net worth back below the 2019 level.

Here is MSN on wealth disparity increasing, from 11 hours ago:

This remarkable surge, amounting to a staggering $2 trillion increase in just three months, underscores the growing concentration of wealth among the wealthiest individuals in the country. The driving force behind this surge? A year-end rally in the stock market, which propelled the value of investment portfolios held by the top echelon of society.

The surge in wealth for the top 1% has been primarily fueled by gains in corporate equities and mutual fund shares, which saw their combined value soar to $19.7 trillion in the fourth quarter, marking a significant uptick from the previous quarter.

This surge in wealth for the top 1% is not an isolated event but rather part of a broader trend that began in 2020 amidst the market upswing triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, the wealth of this elite segment of society has ballooned by nearly $15 trillion, representing an astonishing 49% increase.

So while wages saw a 7%-over-inflation growth for the bottom-earners, investment incomes for top-earners propelled their wealth 49% higher.

I was careful to phrase it as “wage earners”

You specifically said "income inequality", not "wage inequality", as the first 2 words of your comment I replied to.

I sent a couple already which specifically show wages growing outpacing inflation

Yes, because inflation is an overall metric that defines the general growth of prices. It's not uniform. It's a mean. So if the price of goods in one sector goes down or stays static, it can mask the increased prices of other sectors. That people have more buying power because wage increases (which, keep in mind, is also an average, and doesn't actually apply to everyone equally) have outpaced overall inflation, is not an assertion that can be made only with those statistics.