Income security for American workers has been rising

By Tyler Cowen.

"American workers are doing relatively well, but there is still a lot of anxiety about their plight. To many commentators, the US worker is suffering: Whether the culprit is outsourcing, trade with China, or the sheer daily turbulence of capitalism, that worker faces increasingly volatile income prospects. One political scientist even wrote a whole book about this worry.

Fortunately, the reality is much brighter. One study of this question, performed by a group of economists from Wharton, Stanford, the University of Minnesota and Brookings, suggests that income volatility has mostly been declining for the last seven decades — and especially for the last four. Whatever volatility risks remain, they used to be much worse.

One striking feature of these results, posted last week and based on data from the US Census Bureau and the Social Security Administration, is how widespread are the gains in job security. They are not going to just a scant few workers. They are long-running for both women (dating to the 1950s) and men (dating to the 1980s). They hold across most demographic groups and by gender, age, earnings level and cohort."