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☆ Opinion | Can Biden Revive the Fortunes of American Workers?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( Paul Krugman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

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

☆ United Auto Workers Strike a Blow for Equality - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-30 | by ( Paul Krugman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Some history you should know: Baby boomers like me grew up in a nation that was far less polarized economically than the one we live in today. For example, chief executives of major corporations were paid “only” 15 times as much as their average workers, compared with more than 200 times as much as their average workers now. But income gaps remained narrow for decades after these controls were lifted; overall income inequality didn’t really take off again until around 1980. Unions are a force for greater wage equality; they also help enforce the “outrage constraint” that used to limit executive compensation. Conversely, the decline of unions, which now represent less than 7 percent of private-sector workers, must have played a role in the coming of the Second Gilded Age we live in now.

Persons: Claudia Goldin, Robert Margo Organizations: Unions Locations: America

☆ 50 Years Ago, Stevie Wonder Heard the Future
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

In 1972 — half a century ago — Stevie Wonder reinvented the sound of pop by embracing all he could accomplish on his own. He released two albums that year: “Music of My Mind” in March and then, less than eight months later, on Oct. 27, the even more confident and far-reaching “Talking Book.” “Talking Book” was a breakthrough on multiple fronts. Wonder had given signs on earlier albums, particularly his self-produced “Where I’m Coming From” (1971), that he would not just be writing love songs. In their test run — a three-day weekend working together in the studio — Wonder wrote 17 songs. From 1972-74, with Wonder writing the songs and Cecil and Margouleff programming the sounds, they would make four landmark albums: “Music of My Mind,” “Talking Book,” “Innervisions” and “Fulfillingness’ First Finale.”

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