Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

Trust in official wage and employment data

• Some argue current leaders want loyalists in statistical agencies to massage numbers, likening it to propaganda; others counter that revisions are a normal byproduct of the trade‑off between timeliness and accuracy.
• Agencies like BLS are said to publish methodology and uncertainty clearly; big revisions have always existed but now get politicized.
• Debate over whether recent revisions are unusually large or just more noticed; one side calls the numbers “massively incorrect”, another asks for historical comparison and points to published revision tables.

Who gets hurt most: poverty, climate, and shocks

• Many note that the poorest are hit hardest by nearly any economic change—wage slowdowns, tariffs, inflation, and climate‑driven disasters.
• Example: poor people often live in higher‑risk areas (tornado zones, flood plains) because safer areas are more expensive; others push back citing insurance costs and wealthier people in risky coastal regions.
• Some link rising insurance costs to climate risk; others point to falling weather‑related deaths as evidence of improved resilience.

Tariffs, prices, and distributional effects

• Broad agreement that tariffs function like regressive taxes on consumption; richer households can absorb higher prices more easily.
• Disagreement over incidence: some say importers ultimately pass costs to consumers; others emphasize shared burden between manufacturers, distributors, and buyers based on price elasticity.
• One camp claims tariffs plus immigration crackdowns will raise low‑skill wages by shrinking labor supply and pushing production home; critics say prices will rise, jobs won’t “come back,” firms will automate, re‑route supply chains, or lobby to roll tariffs back.

Globalization and its trade‑offs

• One view: offshoring brought “massive” growth and quality‑of‑life gains by letting poorer countries do dirty, low‑paid work; reversing it would mean worse jobs and prices at home.
• Counterview: gains accrued mainly to capital and the upper tiers; US middle‑class earnings, deindustrialization, and current politics illustrate the social cost.

Inflation vs wage growth for low earners

• Some commenters note that low‑wage workers saw strong nominal and even real wage gains between 2019–2023, especially in fast food, contradicting the idea of long‑term stagnation.
• Others insist official inflation understated real cost‑of‑living increases (especially housing, food, utilities), so “real wage growth” is overstated or illusory.
• Several highlight that even if low wages are now rising faster than headline inflation, earlier years of real wage decline, high housing inflation, and accumulated debt make this cold comfort.

Minimum wage, employment, and automation

• Proposals range from large federal hikes (e.g., to ~$25/hour) to skepticism that a uniform federal floor makes sense given regional costs.
• One side argues a too‑low federal minimum drags down wages and that higher floors lift tens of millions; critics say big hikes mainly “tax” small businesses, accelerate kiosk/automation adoption, and can reduce low‑skill jobs (e.g., cited fast‑food employment drops after state hikes).
• Supporters respond that firms were already automating, and that jobs that don’t pay a living wage shouldn’t exist; opponents reply that a “bad job” is still better than no job.

Inequality, meritocracy, and redistribution

• Some say there’s “no advantage” to being poor in the US and argue democracy requires policy bias toward the poor to counter oligarchic drift.
• Others defend markets: labor is “worth what people will pay,” free‑market capitalism is credited with lifting billions from poverty; critics counter that unregulated markets decay into exploitation and require strong labor rights.
• Discussion of meritocracy notes how advantages compound across generations (education, networks), making top strata relatively persistent despite some income mobility.

Housing, landlords, and structural extraction

• Several blame landlords for capturing most gains from low‑end wage growth via higher rents; wage increases at the bottom often trail housing costs.
• Immigration crackdowns, tariffs, and tax cuts for the rich are expected by some to push more money into real estate, further inflating housing prices and squeezing low‑wage workers despite nominal wage gains.