When what comes down doesn’t go up

ACCORDING to the rich world’s politicians, economics has a new villain. The modish scoundrel of the past seven years—the immoral banker outwitting inept regulators—has been edged out by a returning blackguard: the tight-fisted boss crushing the hopes of honest workers with miserly pay. In America workers have been demonstrating for higher pay and stronger union rights in the profitable but poorly paying food industry. Hillary Clinton has blasted CEOs who earn 300 times what the average worker does, pledging that her run for the presidency will champion the “everyday Americans” who have the “deck stacked” against them. In Britain Ed Miliband, leader of the opposition Labour Party, has told the electorate that he plans to punish “predatory” capitalists that exploit the low-paid; his electoral rival David Cameron retorts that his Conservatives are the “party of working people”. In Japan Shinzo Abe has sworn to lift salaries, and cajoles and threatens Japanese bosses to deliver on his promise.

The facts give such rhetoric resonance. In most places the recession that followed the financial crisis had dire effects on wages. Despite five years of growth American real wages are still 1.2% below what they were at the beginning of 2009. In Britain, real wages fell every year between 2009 and 2014, the longest decline since the mid-1800s. In 2014 median pay was 10% below its 2008 high. Germany, a haven during the euro-zone crisis, has done better, but wages are still 2.4% below their 2008 level. While there are exceptions—median pay has risen since 2008 in Canada and France—these have generally been bad years for wages.