Ryan Streeter
Between 1980-1990, the median income of a family in America increased by 8.3%. In the next decade, the 1990s, that same family saw gains of 13%. In the following decade, the first of the 21st century, the same family’s income dropped 4.5%.
During the same time period, from 1980 until now, the share of all income earned in America by the middle has gone from 16.8% to 14.6%, while the top earners have increased their share from 44.1% to 50.3%.
These numbers reflect what policy wonks often refer to as “middle class wage stagnation” - a topic that has become nearly commonplace in public policy discussions.
But that hasn’t exactly made the issue a top priority of policymakers.
Ross Douthat said it best last fall when I asked him what the number one issue is that conservatives prefer not to talk about:
Wage stagnation and social immobility. The fact that it probably isn't as easy to rise in America as it used to be. The fact that the middle and working classes struggled to keep up during the Bush years, conservative victories on tax policy notwithstanding. The fact that this country is more stratified than it should be if America's going to remain globally competitive, and if the American dream is going to stay alive.
Why is this topic so difficult for conservatives to talk about?
I think there are two basic reasons: first, conservatives are averse to discussing anything that smacks of class warfare, and second, we have a benign faith that conservative policies (e.g., Reaganesque tax cuts) benefit all people equally.
The reality of the past decade suggests that we are experiencing a policy failure right in the middle of America. This doesn’t mean that we should adopt the policies of the left: redistribution, minimum wages, and publicly managed health care haven’t created upward mobility, and they won’t do so anytime soon.
We need a new approach. But in order to fashion a policy agenda, we need a goal.
Instead of abstract goals (“job creation”) or general growth targets (3% GDP growth), conservatives should make a goal out of increasing the average family’s take-home pay. We'll know America is back in the saddle when middle class families are experiencing the social mobility that we came to expect of America long ago.
For starters, I propose conservatives adopt a 7-in-7 goal: let’s do all we can to generate a 7% increase in median family income in the seven years between 2013 and 2020. Those would mark the seven years of, hopefully, a two-term Republican president. More importantly, it would give us the duration of the 112th Congress to start testing out messages and policies.
This goal needs to be reached without redistribution, "strengthening labor" and the other tricks our friends on the left would recommend - self-appointed advocates of the middle class though they may be. The goal needs to be achieved by creating better-paying jobs, greater returns to whatever new skills and knowledge middle class workers can gain, and so on. It also should be achieved by reducing the increasing layer of “built-in” costs to life itself: health insurance premiums, regulatory costs that are passed through to consumers, unnecessary energy price spikes due to bad energy policy, and so on.
I’d like to hear from you. Is 7% in seven years doable? Idealistic? Not aggressive enough? Email me here.
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