Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Don’t Blame Business for Slow Wage Growth

Productivity levels are the main culprit, even if employers’ restrictive policies also play a role.

September 20, 2018 at 12:03 PM EDT

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

She’d like a raise with that.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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Are wages determined by market forces, or do businesses get to decide what pay they offer to workers?

This question gets at the heart of a lot of the debate about the economy. Why has wage growth been so sluggish for so many years?

Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal

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