Men haven't gotten a real raise since the 1970s

Graph showing median earnings for men and women since 1960.

(Image credit: Brookings)

Analysis from the Brookings Institute finds that men in America haven't had a real raise in 40 years: The median male wage in 1973, once adjusted for inflation ($53,294), was actually slightly higher than the median male worker's income in 2014 ($50,383).

Brookings economist David Wessel argues that an increase in non-wage compensation plus the decline of collective bargaining and higher income inequality all contribute to stagnant male earnings.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.