Why did U.S. wages stagnate for 20 years?

Housing, Land Use, and Regional Effects

• Several commenters argue housing policy is a major missing piece: downzoning, bans on higher-density “dingbat” buildings, and California’s Prop 13 constrained supply while demand rose.
• California ADU rules are criticized for boosting land values (extra “license” to build a rental unit) without allowing lot splits, thus making entry-level homeownership harder.
• Debate over whether higher density raises or lowers land value: one side says upzoning increases land values in dense cores; the other argues restrictive zoning makes land artificially scarce and expensive.
• Others note cost-of-living divergence: same national monetary policy, but metros like coastal California see extreme housing inflation while places like Ohio don’t, implying strong regional policy effects.

Globalization, Trade, and Timing

• Some say the article misplaces globalization’s start at NAFTA; they point instead to the 1970s (China opening, containerization, logistics advances, offshoring, “Rust Belt” decline).
• Others counter that U.S.–China trade was too small before the 2000s to explain 1970s wage stagnation, and that the big trade deficits came much later.
• One thread stresses that measuring trade only in dollars misses labor-content differences; another responds that, in macro terms, early China trade was still too small to matter.

Neoliberalism, Financialization, and Corporate Behavior

• Multiple comments tie wage stagnation to the breakdown of Bretton Woods, deregulation, financialization, and the rise of shareholder-first ideology (Friedman doctrine, Powell memorandum).
• Claimed mechanisms: weakened unions, offshoring threats, prioritization of stock price and buybacks, and policy capture by capital leading to wealth concentration.
• There is an extended debate over “stakeholder capitalism” in the mid-20th century versus later “shareholder supremacy,” and whether that philosophical shift plausibly drove wage suppression.

Labor Supply, Demographics, and Bargaining Power

• Some highlight expansion of the labor force (baby boomers, women, immigrants, H‑1B workers) as putting downward pressure on wages; others note evidence that women’s labor-force entry doesn’t match the timing well and should raise demand too.
• Union busting, “right-to-work” regimes, and political obstacles to pro-worker policy (low turnout, barriers to voting) are cited as eroding workers’ bargaining power.

Productivity, Automation, and Distribution of Gains

• One line of argument: technology and automation raised productivity, but gains accrued to capital and executives rather than to workers.
• Replies invoke competitive pressure: firms that share gains with workers may be outcompeted by those that cut labor costs or reinvest more aggressively.

Healthcare, Measured Compensation, and Living Standards

• Some note total compensation (wages + benefits) tracks productivity better than cash wages; the “missing” wage growth shows up as employer health spending.
• Many push back that this is worse for workers: more of their notional compensation is consumed by an increasingly expensive, often lower-quality healthcare system, leaving little improvement in disposable income.
• This ties into broader complaints that essentials (housing, medical care, education) rose much faster than wages, while some luxuries (electronics) got cheaper.

Central Bank Policy and Inflation Targeting

• A cluster of comments blames central bank policy: keeping inflation low and reacting aggressively to wage growth with rate hikes is seen as structurally anti-wage.
• Others link the 1990s move toward explicit inflation targeting to more stable but lower wage dynamics, versus the more volatile pre-1990 environment.

Monopoly Power and Market Structure

• Some attribute stagnation to rising concentration and monopolies/oligopolies, arguing that dominant firms no longer need to compete hard for labor or innovate.
• Others insist this needs more quantitative backing and must also explain why wages rose again in later periods for some groups.

1971 / Gold Standard Theories and Disputes

• A recurring minority view centers everything on 1971 (end of Bretton Woods, move to pure fiat) as the “smoking gun” behind inequality, debt growth, and wage–productivity divergence.
• Many commenters strongly reject this as crank economics, arguing the correlations are over-read and other factors (policy, unions, globalization, regulation) better explain the patterns.

War, Fiscal Priorities, and Social Spending

• One perspective emphasizes misallocation: trillions spent on wars and financial bailouts instead of infrastructure, industry, or workers is framed as a core reason the gains of growth weren’t broadly shared.

Meta: Complexity and the Article’s Framing

• Several readers think the article overreaches in searching for a single clean cause and underplays multi-factor explanations (housing, healthcare, policy, globalization, institutions).
• Others defend it as at least data-driven and explicit about uncertainty, even if many pet theories (neoliberalism, Fed policy, housing) get less emphasis than commenters would like.