Great Regression

The Great Regression refers to worsening economic conditions affecting lower earning sections of the population in the United States, Western Europe and other advanced economies starting around 1981. These deteriorating conditions include rising inequality; and falling or stagnating real wages, pensions, unemployment insurance, and welfare benefits. The decline in these conditions has been by no means uniform. Specific trends vary depending on the metric being tracked, the country, and which specific demographic is being examined. For most advanced economies, the worsening economic conditions affecting the less well off accelerated sharply after the late-2000s recession.
Examples
Some of the trends making up the great regression pre-date 1981. Such as stagnating wages for production and non-supervisory workers in the U.S. private sector; real wages for these workers peaked in 1973. Or the divergence in increases of productivity and pay for such workers: these two factors tended to increase in "lock-step" until about 1973, but then diverged sharply, with productivity increasing massively over the following decades, while pay stagnated. The breakdown of Bowley's law, the apparently near fixed proportion of economic output going to workers, is another enduring change which began around the mid 1970s.
Causes
Robert Reich considers the main cause to be political, with the rich better able to influence politics.

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