非常好的一篇分析文章，对了解美国的社会现状是一个很好的窗口。
以下是分析结论：
从2017年到2018年，工资分配中的许多工人的实际小时工资增加，但不是所有性别和种族或族裔，也不是所有教育程度的工人。一般而言，自2000年以来的年份与工资分配的持续分离有关，而最高层的收益则不成比例。对于那些受过更多教育的人来说，工资仍然高于受教育程度较低的工人的工资，尽管大学工资溢价的适度增加并不能解释最高收入者的更加极端的退出。在工资分配的最高层和最低层之间推动工资不平等加剧的一个趋势是过去五年中第10个百分点的强劲增长，特别是在增加最低工资的州。

过去几年的工资上涨发生在失业率下降期间，失业率在大萧条之前的低点附近下降（甚至低于）。这不是巧合。如果允许失业率继续下降，最终低失业率应该会提高中低收入工人的杠杆率，足以看到稳定和大幅的工资增长。然而，没有任何迹象表明我们已经达到了我们能够持续推动工资增长的极限，失业工资增长率仍然低于我们在完全健康的经济中的预期。这意味着不应该做出有信心的宣言，即我们已经实现了充分就业，美联储应该推迟任何进一步的加息，并让经济继续增长。

充分就业是工人获得足够的讨价还价能力以增加工资的一种方式;当闲置工人稀缺时，雇主必须支付更多费用以吸引和留住他们所需的工人。对于处于工资分配底部的工人来说，充分就业带来的更高工资的“杠杆”是最重要的：对于失业率的特定下降，低工资工人的工资增长会增加，而在没有更强的工资的情况下劳工标准，低工资工人通常只在最紧张的劳动力市场看到更强的工资增长（Bivens和Zipperer 2018）。

除了寻求保持劳动力市场紧张之外，政策制定者还可以采取其他措施来促进强有力的广泛工资增长，例如提高联邦最低工资，扩大加班费资格，解决性别和种族薪酬差距，以及保护和加强工人权利集体讨价还价以获得更高的工资和福利。


From 2017 to 2018, real hourly wages increased for many workers across the wage distribution, though not for all genders and races or ethnicities nor for workers at all levels of educational attainment. In general, the years since 2000 have been associated with a continued pulling apart of the wage distribution, with disproportionate gains at the top. Wages for those with additional schooling remain higher than wages for workers with less education, though modest increases in the college wage premium cannot explain the more extreme pulling away of the top earners. One trend pushing back on growing wage inequality between the top and bottom of the wage distribution is stronger growth at the 10th percentile over the last five years, particularly in states that have increased their minimum wage.

Rising wages over the last few years have happened during a period of falling unemployment, with unemployment rates dropping near to (or even below) pre–Great Recession lows. This is no coincidence. If the unemployment rate is allowed to continue to fall, eventually low unemployment should boost low- and middle-wage workers’ leverage enough to see steady and large wage gains. However, there is no sign that we’ve reached the limits of how much we can sustainably boost wage growth with lower unemployment—wage growth remains weaker than we should expect in a fully healthy economy. This means that confident proclamations that we’ve achieved full employment should not be made and that the Federal Reserve should hold off on any further interest rate increases and allow the economy to continue to grow.

Full employment is one way that workers gain enough bargaining power to increase their wages; employers have to pay more to attract and retain the workers they need when idle workers are scarce. The “lever” for higher wages that comes from full employment is most important for workers at the bottom of the wage distribution: For a given fall in the unemployment rate, wage growth rises more for low-wage workers, and in the absence of stronger labor standards, it is often only in the tightest of labor markets that low-wage workers see stronger wage growth (Bivens and Zipperer 2018).

Beyond seeking to keep labor markets tight, policymakers could take other steps to foster strong broad-based wage growth, such as raising the federal minimum wage, expanding eligibility for overtime pay, addressing gender and racial pay disparities, and protecting and strengthening workers’ rights to bargain collectively for higher wages and benefits.