>Recent figures suggest that wages have been almost stagnant over the
>period 1973-93
The real hourly wage for the average U.S. worker declined about 16% between its 1973 peak and its trough in 1995; it's up about 5% since, though the recent strong growth rate has slowed a bit. Few other countries in the First World have seen such a decline. In Britain, there was a sharp increase in wage inequality during the 1980s and 1990s, but workers at all levels still saw real wage rises, unlike the U.S., where only the upper brackets enjoyed raises. Actually, those averages are driven mainly by what's been going on with men, whose earnings have eroded at every level below the 90th percentile; women at almost every level of the distribution have seen real wage increases since 1973, though the ones below the 40th percentile are pretty tiny.
Doug