wage stagnation
Salaries not rising
Wage stagnation describes a prolonged period when workers' pay fails to increase meaningfully, especially when adjusted for inflation.
The term typically appears in economic and political discussions about living standards, as stagnant wages mean workers can't buy more over time even as productivity rises or costs increase.
Wage stagnation has squeezed the middle class for decades.
The phenomenon is often contrasted with periods of wage growth that allow workers to improve their material circumstances.
- inflationSustained price level increase
- incomeRegular monetary receipts
- buying powerCurrency's actual worth
- inequalityUnequal distribution of resources
- declineDecrease or refuse
erosion · falling behind · paycheck · paycheck to paycheck · recession · unemployment · middleclass · poverty · working poor · struggle · economy · purchasing · cost of living · frozen · flatline · squeezed · workers · labor
- post-industrialservice economy, knowledge economy, deindustrialization, service sector, information age
- poverty factorsdeprivation, hardship, low income, joblessness, inequality
- capitalism critiqueanti-capitalism, wealth inequality, income inequality, wealth gap, income gap
- laborlabor, labor union, work, labor force, laborers
- povertypoverty line, poor, poverty rate, impoverished, generational poverty
- workforceworkers, employee, employees, labor force, employer
wage stagnationwage growth
Increase in compensation
income growth · earnings growth · wage inflation · pay raises · pay raise
wage stagnationeconomic boom
Sustained period of growth
full employment · economic prosperity · prosperity · worker empowerment · economic expansion
wage, wages, waged, waging, wager, stagnation, stagnate, stagnates, stagnated