Last week, employees at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., voted by almost three to one to join the United Automobile Workers.
By the numbers, this wasn’t a big deal: It involved only a few thousand workers in an economy that employs almost 160 million people.
You can quantify this arc using statistical measures like the Gini coefficient or the ratio of top to bottom incomes.
The thing is, that relatively equal society didn’t evolve gradually.
Wartime wage and price controls were an equalizing force, but the new equality persisted for decades after those controls were removed.
Persons:
Claudia Goldin —, Robert Margo
Organizations:
Volkswagen, United Automobile Workers
Locations:
Chattanooga , Tenn, Chattanooga, America