09-21-2016, 02:03 PM
Rather than trade, one of the reasons for the wage stagnation in the US has been the decline of unions. The Nordic countries are more open to trade but they have not seen anywhere near the same wage stagnation:
Quote:Because blue-collar worker income in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark is so high, Americans are often surprised to learn that none of the Nordic social democracies have minimum wage laws. The truth is that they don’t need them, thanks to the immense (albeit gradually waning) power of Scandinavian labor unions.The Labor Movement’s Decline Has Been Bad For Even Non-Union Workers | Demos
Organized labor in that region of Europe has used its power to set a de facto wage floor, rendering parliamentary action superfluous. Danish organized labor, for example, has negotiated collective bargaining agreements that cover approximately 80 percent of the country’s workers. That means even the handful of firms outside those contracts need to keep wages high in order to hire and retain employees. To a great extent, unions set the price of Danish labor, even in workplaces where there are no union members.
New research from the Economic Policy Institute suggests that American unions play a similar role — or at least they used to. An EPI report issued on Monday argues that the decline of organized labor has seriously damaged the earning power of even non-union working men in the private sector.