"We’re Seeing a Fundamental Reorganization of Work in America"

Plain English with Derek Thompson

The Ringer

News Commentary, News

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2024

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s episode is about arguably the most important economic statistic out there: real (or inflation-adjusted) wage growth. For much of the last few years, many people's real wages have declined. But for the last few quarters, real wages have been growing. In fact, they've grown so much for the poorest workers that several key measures of inequality are falling, and the Black-white wage gap is shrinking. But many Americans still don't seem to buy the idea that things are getting better. Today's guest is Dr. Arindrajit Dube, a professor of economics at University of Massachusetts Amherst—one of the world’s top researchers on minimum wage policies and pay. He says things are happening in this economy that we haven't seen since the 1950s or 1960s. "We're seeing a fundamental reorganization of work in America," Dube said. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Dr. Arindrajit Dube Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Did Don Draper really buy the world of Coke?
0:04.0	Did Tony Soprano really die or just order more onion rings?
0:08.0	The finales of our favorite shows can make us argue,
0:10.0	make us cry, and make us crazy.
0:13.2	From Spotify and the Ringer, I'm Andy Greenwald, and this is Stick The Landing, a new
0:17.1	podcast where we'll be telling the story of Modern TV backwards, one fade out at a time.
0:22.8	Find Stick the Landing on Wednesdays on the Prestige TV feed,
0:26.0	on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:28.8	Today's episode is about arguably the most important economic statistic out there.
0:37.0	Real wage growth.
0:39.0	If you've listened to episodes in this show before where we talked about the economy,
0:44.0	you know that I think one of the most interesting dynamics in this economy right now
0:48.9	is the gap between the hard data and the soft data. Hard data are reports of economic activity,
0:55.5	unemployment rate, GDP, housing starts. Soft data is how people feel about the economy.
1:01.6	And it comes from surveys run by organizations like the
1:04.6	University of Michigan and the conference board. For much of the last year, the
1:09.2	hard data showed that inflation was falling while the economy was growing strongly.
1:14.0	But the soft data showed that consumers didn't buy this story.
1:17.0	They felt like everything was a mess.
1:19.0	Their finances were a mess. Business outlook was a mess.
1:22.0	The national economy was a mess. And for was a mess, the national economy was a mess.
1:24.0	For the most part, people have been predominantly upset about inflation.
	...

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