This is the Age of the Incredible Shrinking Everything. Home
prices, the stock market, G.D.P., corporate profits, employment:
they’re all a fraction of what they once were. Yet amid this
carnage there is one thing that, surprisingly, has continued to
grow: the paycheck of the average worker. Companies are slashing
payrolls: 3.6 million people have lost their jobs since the
recession started, with half of those getting laid off in just
the past three months. Yet average hourly wages jumped almost
four per cent in the past year. It’s harder and harder to find
and keep a job, but if you’ve got one you may well be making
more than you did twelve months ago. This combination of rising
unemployment and higher wages seems improbable. But, as it turns
out, it’s what history would lead us to expect. Even during the
early years of the Great Depression, manufacturing workers
actually saw their real wages rise, and wage cuts have been
scarce in every recession since. Oil and wheat prices may rise
and fall instantaneously