Note also that 1970 was a peak. Pick 1990 and things are going well.
Or as https://www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/economic-fact/th... puts it "After adjusting for inflation, wages are only 10 percent higher in 2017 than they were in 1973, with annual real wage growth just below 0.2 percent.1 The U.S. economy has experienced long-term real wage stagnation and a persistent lack of economic progress for many workers." with footnote 1 saying "Cumulative real wage growth is sensitive to the particular method of inflation adjustment. Some researchers use the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) deflator, which implies even lower real wage growth, or the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) deflator, which implies higher real wage growth (Bivens and Mishel 2015; Sacerdote 2017)."
> Starting in the late 1970s policymakers began dismantling all the policy bulwarks helping to ensure that typical workers’ wages grew with productivity. Excess unemployment was tolerated to keep any chance of inflation in check. Raises in the federal minimum wage became smaller and rarer. Labor law failed to keep pace with growing employer hostility toward unions. Tax rates on top incomes were lowered. And anti-worker deregulatory pushes—from the deregulation of the trucking and airline industries to the retreat of anti-trust policy to the dismantling of financial regulations and more—succeeded again and again.
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/06/are-wages-rising-or-flat/ shows "average weekly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees" as being about the same now as 1970. (See also https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000031 and expand the range starting from 1964.)
Note also that 1970 was a peak. Pick 1990 and things are going well.
Or as https://www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/economic-fact/th... puts it "After adjusting for inflation, wages are only 10 percent higher in 2017 than they were in 1973, with annual real wage growth just below 0.2 percent.1 The U.S. economy has experienced long-term real wage stagnation and a persistent lack of economic progress for many workers." with footnote 1 saying "Cumulative real wage growth is sensitive to the particular method of inflation adjustment. Some researchers use the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) deflator, which implies even lower real wage growth, or the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) deflator, which implies higher real wage growth (Bivens and Mishel 2015; Sacerdote 2017)."
Still, wages haven't matched productivity increases. https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
> Starting in the late 1970s policymakers began dismantling all the policy bulwarks helping to ensure that typical workers’ wages grew with productivity. Excess unemployment was tolerated to keep any chance of inflation in check. Raises in the federal minimum wage became smaller and rarer. Labor law failed to keep pace with growing employer hostility toward unions. Tax rates on top incomes were lowered. And anti-worker deregulatory pushes—from the deregulation of the trucking and airline industries to the retreat of anti-trust policy to the dismantling of financial regulations and more—succeeded again and again.