World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Here is a video of a talk I gave to the World Affairs Council of Western Massachusetts yesterday in Springfield, MA. The topic was “America and the Middle East: Will the Wars Ever End?” I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the topic with such a well-informed and engaged audience.

Turkey has begun an offensive against Syrian forces in the province of Idlib, responding to a Syrian attack that killed 30 Turkish soldiers. Turkish forces claim to have shot down two Syrian jets and to have hit 200 Syrian regime targets with artillery and drone strikes. Under an agreement with Russia and Syria forged in 2018, Turkey has the right to maintain 12 observation sites in Syria, but those sites have come under attack by Syrian forces. The counteroffensive is a delicate operation since the Turks do not wish to engage Russian forces which are supporting the Syrian troops, but making those distinctions between Russian and Syrian forces is difficult.

On another front, Turkey is releasing Syrian refugees on its western border and many of those refugees are trying to seek asylum in Greece. Once in Greece, those refugees will try to move to other EU countries. The EU wants to avoid that influx for political reasons which have been aggravated by fears of the coronavirus. The Turkish move is an attempt to put pressure on Europe to offer support to Turkey in its confrontation in Syria. Barring a Syrian or Russian attack on Turkish soil, there is probably no way that Europe would offer military support to Turkey, particularly in light of the long-standing tensions between Turkey and the EU. But “Erdogan said Turkey, home to some 3.6 million refugees, did not plan to close the borders because ‘the (EU) should keep its promises’. He was referring to the 2016 deal with Brussels to stop the flow of refugees in exchange for billions of euros.”

Turkish President Erdogan is scheduled to meet with Russian President Putin in Russia on Thursday. They will undoubtedly discuss measures to assure that Turkish troops do not fire on Russian troops in Syria. But whether Putin can make any promises about the behavior of Syrian troops is unlikely. Russia has sent large amounts of military equipment to Syria in response to the Turkish attacks. Those weapons could be a bribe to induce Syrian President Assad to hold back. Or they could be a clear statement that Russia backs its Syrian ally wholeheartedly. Russia has sent two naval frigates armed with cruise missiles through the Bosporus Strait into the eastern Mediterranean, signaling its intent to support Syria.

The US, Afghanistan, and the Taliban have signed an agreement that some hope may lead to peace in Afghanistan. The agreement is the result of protracted negotiations between the US and the Taliban which have been conducted in Qatar. The text reflects the extraordinary dance all sides had to make in order to save face–the title of the text is convoluted: “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the United States of America”. The language reflects the desire of the US not to create the illusion that the Taliban is equal in status to the government of Afghanistan.

The agreement was signed after a week-long “test” of the willingness of both the US and the Taliban to limit violence (it is not clear to me what a week-long hiatus means in the context of a war that has been going on for 19 years). The US has agreed to withdraw

“….all of its military forces and supporting civilian personnel, as well as those of its allies, within 14 months. The drawdown process will begin with the U.S. reducing its troop levels to 8,600 in the first 135 days and pulling its forces from five bases.

“The rest of its forces, according to the agreement, will leave “within the remaining nine and a half months.”

“The Afghan government also will release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners as a gesture of goodwill, in exchange for 1,000 Afghan security forces held by the Taliban.”

Further:

“The U.S. intends, along with members of the United Nations Security Council, to ‘remove members of the Taliban from the sanctions list with the aim of achieving this objective by May 29, 2020’ — and Washington, in particular, aims to remove the group from U.S. sanctions by Aug 27, 2020….

“The Afghan government will also begin negotiations with the Taliban to map out a political settlement which would establish the role the Taliban would play in a future Afghanistan. These negotiations are expected to start next month. One of the first tasks in these intra-Afghan talks will be to achieve a lasting ceasefire in Afghanistan.”

The last point is important because the Taliban has refused to engage the Afghan government as long as US troops were in the country. Apparently, the commitment to withdraw was sufficient to induce the Taliban to consider changing its position.

There is considerable ambiguity in the agreement. The Taliban are supposed to cease working or communicating with al Qaeda, the group that led the attacks against the US on 11 September 2001 and was the target of the US invasion in October 2001. But one of the most important groups within the Taliban is one led by Sirajuddin Haqqani who is a deputy in the Taliban but also a member of al Qaeda.

There are some who believe that the agreement is nothing more than a face-saving way for the Trump Administration to get out of a war that was incredibly expensive and not very effective. The Taliban controls most of Afghanistan other than the immediate vicinity of the capital city, Kabul. And some conservatives in the US believe that the Taliban will not honor the agreement in much the same way that North Vietnam used the peace agreement with the US in 1973 as a prelude to its invasion of South Vietnam in 1975. Additionally, many do not believe that the agreement provides sufficient guarantees for the rights of women and girls in the country and that the Taliban will revert back to its oppression of women prior to 2001.

There is much to criticize in the agreement but one should not lose sight of one very important piece of evidence: the US has been fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years. The costs of the war as calculated by the BBC have been considerable:

“Since the war against the Taliban began in 2001, US forces have suffered more than 2,300 deaths and around 20,660 soldiers injured in action.

“And according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama), more than 100,000 civilians have been killed or injured since it began systematically recording civilian casualties in 2009.

“The US has spent on average $1.5m day – or nearly $9bn since 2002 until September last year – on anti-narcotics efforts, yet UN figures show that the total estimated area devoted to opium poppy cultivation reached a record high in 2017.

“In 2017, the US watchdog responsible for the oversight of reconstruction efforts said that as much as $15.5bn had been lost on “waste, fraud and abuse” over the past 11 years.

Indeed, the total spending on the wars associated with the “war on terror” since 2001 as estimated by researchers at Brown University is considerable: “The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9 trillion (in current dollars) on the war on terror through Fiscal Year 2019, including direct war and war-related spending and obligations for future spending on post 9/11 war veterans”.

There is no evidence that these efforts have materially changed the security situation of the US in any meaningful way. Even if the current agreement with the Taliban is fundamentally flawed, it is accurate to say that the policy of seeking a peace through military action was a fool’s errand.

NATO has offered words of support to Turkey in its current standoff with Russia over Idlib, Syria. But the idea of a “no-fly” zone suggested by some members of the US Congress was not part of the words of solidarity. NATO is obliged to come to the defense of its members, but only if their national territory is attacked. Since the Russian air strike that killed Turkish soldiers occurred on Syrian territory, NATO does not have to act under Article 5 of its charter:

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

NATO is extremely reluctant to be drawn into the dispute between Turkey and Russia for both strategic and political reasons. Russia likely does not approve of Syrian President Assad’s decision to retake all the territory in Idlib, but it has nonetheless stood by its ally. According to The Economist: “Russia denied responsibility, but suggested that Turkey may have invited the attack by placing its troops alongside Syrian rebels and not informing Russia of their location. Just hours after the strike Russia sent two warships armed with cruise missiles to the eastern Mediterranean. The warships sailed through the Bosphorus, which bisects Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city.” The Russian stance complicates NATO’s decision-making with respect to defending Turkey. Time magazine points out:

“The allies are extremely reluctant to be drawn into a conflict of Turkey’s making, and particularly because President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used up a lot of good will by testing his fellow NATO members’ patience for quite a while.

“The Syria offensive comes on top of tensions over Turkey’s purchase of Russian-made S400 missiles, which threaten NATO security and the F-35 stealth jet. Erdogan also purged thousands of Turkish military officers following the failed coup in Turkey in 2016 and some have sought, and been granted, asylum in Europe.

“But despite high political-military tensions, Turkey is too important to eject from the 29-member alliance.

“Turkey is of great strategic importance to NATO. The large, mainly Muslim country straddles the Bosporus Strait, making it a vital bridge between Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. It’s also the only waterway in and out of the Black Sea, where Russia’s naval fleet is based.

“NATO allies also rely on the Incirlik air base in southeastern Turkey as a staging point for access to the Middle East. The alliance runs aerial surveillance operations from Incirlik and the United States has nuclear weapons stationed there.”

Turkish President Erdogan may well be rethinking his relationship with NATO, but he has certainly squandered that source of support in the immediate crisis. How President Erdogan will respond to the Russian challenge will determine a lot:

“The irony of Erdogan spending so much time and effort to distance himself from NATO and the EU and now clamoring for their help will not be lost on the Russians. Still the Kremlin’s risky strategy could backfire if Erdogan decides to press on with a ground offensive against Assad’s army and deploys Turkey’s air force. In the “who blinks first” game, it is not clear who will carry the day.

“This conflict may still end to Putin’s satisfaction — if he acts quickly enough on the ground in Syria to preempt any Turkish action. Massive bombardment of Idlib would achieve it; civilian casualties were never of concern to Putin and his generals. Or perhaps some kind of shaky compromise was cobbled together after he spoke with Erdogan on the phone Friday. But in the long term Putin may have created new problems for himself.

“Erdogan will never forget his humiliation by Russia. It weakened him domestically and in the eyes of NATO allies. He may well start repairing relations with the alliance. He will not be making peace with the Assad regime, which means that Putin’s dream of leaving Syria behind may not come true.”

Erdogan will pressure Europe to support him through the threat of allowing thousands of refugees to migrant into Europe, a possibility that threatens greater political instability on the continent. But there is little that Europe can or is willing to do to rile Russia. And it is unlikely that President Trump wishes to cross Russian President Putin. So the most likely outcome is continued tension in Syria and the suffering of the civilian population. The world has decided not to come to their aid.

Barry Ritholtz maintains a blog named “The Big Picture” and the blog reflects his iconoclastic view of the market economy–he is a strong supporter of the market, yet regularly raises questions about how well the market addresses real economic problems faced by the majority of citizens. His most recent post reinforces the information in yesterday’s blog post. Ritholtz looks at the accumulation of wealth since the Great Financial Recession (GFC) of 2008-09 and the distribution of wealth has become increasingly concentrated: “Today, the Top 1% is wealthier than all of the Middle Class. This is a relatively new, post GFC phenomena.  It is driven primarily by the rise of asset prices: Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate and Business holdings.This is why the top 20% has recovered to pre-crisis income but the rest economic strata has not.” Ritholtz argues that this concentration of wealth is primarily responsible for the political attractiveness of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

“The opportunity for economic mobility has shrunk.

“Call this what you will: A plutocracy, an oligopoly, a technocracy, a corporatocracy, a whatever — the massive Post-War middle class expansion that created so much wealth for ordinary families has morphed, starting around 1980, into something else entirely. Today, it has changed into low-tax economy that rewards capital and asset holders, and throws off much less towards the working class than it did  last century.

“Hence, the rise of Donald and Bernie. They both exhibit a more similar appeal to their base then you might imagine.”

The analysis begs the political question of which candidate offers an effective response to this maldistribution of wealth. For Ritholtz, the concentration of wealth is something that the market itself could solve: “We have a robust economy yet still have lots of people not participating. We have an unemployment rate at 60-year lows, yet enormous sections of the labor pool are under-employed. Low inflation in the things we want, but higher inflation in the things people need. We simultaneously have great wealth and economic insecurity. That enormous wealth has flowed to mostly to Capital and asset holders, and not to workers or Labor.”

Russian airstrikes near Idlib, Syria, have reportedly killed 29 Turkish soldiers. The strike represents a dramatic escalation of the tension between Turkey and Russia, one which will be difficult for Turkish President Erdogan to ignore. The BBC reports:

“This is a new and dangerous escalation in an increasingly direct conflict between Turkish and Syrian government forces in Idlib. Both sides have suffered losses over the past few weeks. But the latest Turkish casualties come at a precarious moment.

“President Erdogan has threatened to mount a major military operation against President Assad’s forces if they don’t pull back from frontline positions near Turkish troops in Idlib within the next two days.

“For now there’s no sign of that happening. Turkey has already been stepping up its military support for the rebel fighters it backs as they mount a counter offensive to try to win back key towns they’ve recently lost.

“Behind this conflict looms the potential of an even bigger confrontation. Turkey and Russia have backed different sides in Syria, but have come together to broker battlefield deals in the past few years.

“That pragmatic rapprochement is now in doubt. Russian airpower has provided vital support for Syrian forces – if it is now being directed at Turkish military positions, that creates a huge new element of risk.”

There are urgent diplomatic efforts to avoid further escalation, but Turkey and Russia have been unable to reach any solutions since an abortive cease-fire was declared by both sides in 2018. The fighting around Idlib has displaced almost a million civilians and the humanitarian crisis is extreme. The world, however, seems to be indifferent to the suffering of so many.

The Manhattan Institute has published a fascinating report entitled “The Cost-of-Thriving Index: Reevaluating the Prosperity of the American Family”. The report is an attempt to determine how cost of living metrics actually capture the well-being of US families. We all well aware of the effects of inflation on income, but we lack the ability to translate that numeric index into something which actually tells us how well off the family living on that income may be. The report points out the inadequacy of simple numeric indices:

“It sounds like an absurd riddle, or perhaps a kindergarten-level math problem: the median male full-time worker earned $314 per week in 1979, while his counterpart at the median in 2018 earned $1,026;[3] who was better off?…

“The most commonly used index, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), estimates that inflation has reduced a dollar’s value by 71% from 1979 to 2018. Put another way, one 2018 dollar is worth 29 1979 cents. A different index preferred by the Federal Reserve and many economists, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE), published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), estimates that a dollar’s value has declined by 66%; so one 2018 dollar is worth 34 1979 cents.

“Using CPI, our 2018 worker’s $1,026 in 2018 earnings is worth $297 in 1979 dollars—or 6% less than the $314 in 1979 dollars earned by the 1979 worker. Using PCE, the 2018 earnings is worth $353 in 1979 dollars—a 13% gain.

“….the question is how well the typical male worker can provide for a family. 

“This report shows that his ability to do so has degraded dramatically. A generation ago, he could be confident in his ability to provide for his family not only the basics of food, clothing, and shelter but also the middle-class essentials of a comfortable house, a car, health care, and education. Now he cannot. Public programs may provide those things for him, a second earner may work as well, his family may do without, although his television may be larger than ever. The implications of each is surely worth pondering. But the fact that he can no longer provide middle-class security to a family is an unavoidable economic reality of the modern era.”

The report then analyzes the problems with both the CPI and the PCE metrics, and it proposes a new index which it calls the “cost of thriving” (COTI). The new metric purportedly shows the quality of life better than the two used by economists. Unfortunately, the new index also shows that the quality of life for most US families has declined precipitously since 1985, and that current income levels are no longer sufficient to provide the quality of life in 1985 despite all the major technological benefits that have been available in that time.

Al Jazeera has published a very comprehensive analysis of the many Middle East Peace Plans that have been proposed since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. It then compares those plans with US President Trump’s most recent peace plan. The newspaper has put an extraordinary amount of information on the site and it is a remarkably useful summary of the different proposals. There is little question that Al Jazeera is sympathetic to the Palestinian position, but the presentation is fairly free of ideology. For students of the Middle East this site is a useful place to begin one’s research.

US President Trump visited India in a whirlwind trip, capped off by a very large rally of over 100,000 people. While the meetings between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Modi were going on, there were also large protests against the new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which grants Indian citizenship to people being persecuted for religious reasons in three neighboring countries–except for persecuted Muslims. These protests have been going on for some time, but they were quite violent while Mr. Trump was visiting, with ten killed and 150 injured. According to Reuters:

“The CAA has sparked accusations that Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party are undermining India’s secular traditions. The BJP denies any bias against India’s more than 180 million minority Muslims but objectors have staging protests and camping out in parts of New Delhi for two months.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi discussed a large arms deal worth about $3 billion that included Apache and Romeo MH-60 helicopters. There was no agreement, however, on a proposed trade deal. Trade has been a sore spot between the two states since 2018 when the US slapped tariffs on some Indian exports. Mr. Trump is popular in India with approval ratings around 50%. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi identify themselves as nationalists. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump did not use the occasion to criticize the discriminatory aspects of the CAA:

‘Trump, asked several times about Modi’s support for the new law, praised the Indian leader.

“’He wants people to have religious freedom,’ Trump insisted. ‘They have really worked hard on religious freedom.’

‘Trump appeared to back Modi’s concern that the majority-Hindu country is being overrun by Muslims.

“’He told me, I guess they have 200 plus, 200 million Muslims in India, and a fairly short while ago, they had 14 million,’ Trump said.

“India had about 35 million Muslims in 1951, according to the first census after independence, or about 9.8% of the population. The 201 million Muslims today are 14.2% of the population.

“Later, Trump was asked again about the citizenship law. ‘I don’t want to discuss that, and hopefully they’re going to make the right decision for the people,’ he said.”

The lack of criticism is not surprising given Mr. Trump’s antipathy toward Muslims.

The Center of Climate and Security, a nonpartisan think tank, has released a report entitled “A Security Threat Assessment of Global Climate Change“. The key findings of the report are:

• A near-term scenario of climate change, in which the world warms 1-2°C/1.8-3.6°F over pre-industrial levels by mid-century, would pose ‘High’ to ‘Very High’ security threats. A medium-to-long term scenario in which the world warms as high as 2-4+°C/3.6-7.2°F would pose a ‘Very High’ to ‘Catastrophic’ threat to global and national security. The world has already warmed to slightly below 1°C compared to pre-industrial temperatures.
• At all levels of warming (1-4+°C/1.8-7.2+°F), climate change will pose significant and evolving threats to global security environments, infrastructure, and institutions.
• While at lower warming thresholds, the most fragile parts of the world are the most at risk, all regions of the world will face serious implications. High warming scenarios could bring about catastrophic security impacts across the globe.
• These threats could come about rapidly, destabilizing the regions and relationships on which U.S. and international security depend.
• Climate change will present significant threats to U.S. military missions across all of its geographic areas of responsibility (AORs), as well as to regional security institutions and infrastructure that are critical for maintaining global security.

The report is broken down by the regions in the world that have central commands:

• U.S. African Command (AFRICOM): Africa
• U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM): Middle East and Central Asia
• U.S. European Command (EUCOM): Europe and Russia
• U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM): Indo-Asia-Pacific
• U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM): North American and the Polar Regions
• U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM): South and Central America and Caribbean

The breakdown reflects the strategic threats to the US posed by climate change, not the most useful framework for analyzing climate change. But it identifies the major changes that climate change will force: food, water, and resources stress; extreme weather; sea level rise; migration; health; and state fragility and conflict. The conclusions of the report are straigtforward but unlikely to be implemented under the current Administration:

“Mitigating these risks requires quickly reducing and phasing out global greenhouse gas emissions. As there are numerous policy options for doing so, we refrain from recommending a single course of action. Instead, we call for the world to achieve net-zero global emissions in a manner that is ambitious, safe, equitable, and well-governed.

The world must also rapidly build resilience to the impacts of climate change that we are already experiencing, by “climate-proofing” infrastructure, institutions, and systems on which human security depends. With future oriented investments in adaptation, disaster response, and peacebuilding efforts, we will be better able to recover
from tragedies that strike and to contain effects from spiraling downward into deeper instability.

It is possible to prevent the worst of the scenarios laid out in this report, but this will not happen without clearsighted, dedicated leadership. In the United States, we call for renewed efforts to prioritize, communicate, and respond to climate security threats, and to integrate these considerations across all security considerations.

It is difficult for me to think that even this tight link between climate change and national security will have any effect on the policies of the current administration in the US.

I have had a difficult time trying to assess how dangerous the coronavirus (now identified as COVID-19) is to global stability. The Washington Post ran a very helpful article on the virus that I think I actually understood. Much of the uncertainty stems from my own ignorance of biology but I have also been flummoxed by the inconsistent reporting by China–it appears to be constantly redefining how to identify who has been infected. On the one hand, it seems to be highly contagious (particularly if one has the misfortune to be on a cruise ship). Outbreaks have occurred in South Korea and Italy (and, seemingly, Iran, but the information is spotty from there). Fergus Walsh, the medical correspondent for the BBC writes:

“The combined situation in South Korea, Iran and Italy points to the early stages of pandemic. This means a global outbreak, with the coronavirus spreading in the community in multiple parts of the world.

“In each of these countries we are seeing spread of the virus with no connection to China. The lockdown efforts in Italy mirror those that have happened in China.

“The situation in Iran is especially worrying because the health authorities have reportedly said the virus has spread to multiple cities, and it appears the first case in Lebanon is linked to a traveller from Iran.

“If we have a pandemic, it will still be important to limit the speed of spread of the virus. If countries could hold it somewhat at bay until the end of winter, there is a hope that warmer temperatures will reduce the time the virus can survive in the air, as we see with seasonal flu. But this may not be certain.”

There are serious effects associated with the containment measures designed to stop the spread of the virus. Many businesses in China have closed due to those measures, and the closures are beginning to affect the supply of manufactured inputs to many products. According to Reuters: “The International Monetary Fund’s chief said China’s 2020 growth would likely be lower at 5.6%, down 0.4 percentage points from its January outlook, with 0.1 percentage points shaved from global growth”. Even in those countries which have yet to see many cases, the economic effects have been substantial. In France, for example:

“France’s tourism sector has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, the country’s finance minister said Sunday.

“’We have less tourists, of course, in France, about 30%, 40% less than expected,’ Bruno Le Maire told CNBC on Sunday at the G-20 meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

“Tourism accounts for nearly 8% of France’s gross domestic product. It welcomes around 2.7 million Chinese tourists each year, which Le Maire said ‘won’t be the same, of course, in 2020.’ France has reported 12 confirmed cases of the virus and one death, according to a WHO report dated Feb. 22.“

But it also does not seem to be as lethal as other viruses such as SARS: “Between November 2002 and July 2003, an outbreak of SARS in southern China caused an eventual 8,098 cases, resulting in 774 deaths reported in 17 countries (9.6% fatality rate)”. There have been 2,236 deaths reported so far, but it is hard to be sure that that count is accurate. The death rate is the most important issue and it may be the case that the COVID-19 virus does not merit the containment measures introduced so far. The data from China is somewhat encouraging:

“A recent study of nearly 140 patients at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University identified a typical pattern of symptoms associated with the virus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19. Around 99% of the patients developed a high temperature, while more than half experienced fatigue and a dry cough. About a third also experienced muscle pain and difficulty breathing. 

“Research from the Chinese Center for Disease Control suggests that around 80% of coronavirus cases are mild. Around 15% of patients have gotten severe cases, and 5% have become critically ill.”

But it is hard to be sure and there is little question that taking the virus seriously is the only viable option.

The Guardian is reporting that 25% of all tweets on the issue of climate change are generated by automated bots. The report is based on a as-yet unpublished study conducted by researchers at Brown University. The article quotes several of the researchers and the conclusions seem to be robust. According to the article:

“An analysis of millions of tweets from around the period when Donald Trump announced the US would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement found that bots tended to applaud the president for his actions and spread misinformation about the science.

“The study of Twitter bots and climate was undertaken by Brown University and has yet to be published. Bots are a type of software that can be directed to autonomously tweet, retweet, like or direct message on Twitter, under the guise of a human-fronted account.

“’These findings suggest a substantial impact of mechanized bots in amplifying denialist messages about climate change, including support for Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement,’ states the draft study, seen by the Guardian.”

Climate change denials are systematic attempts to shape public opinion in ways that undermine effective actions to halt the process.

The Economic Policy Institute has released a study of wage growth in the US over the last 40 years. The findings are sobering:

• Slow wage growth persists: Consistent positive wage growth has occurred in only 10 of the last 40 years.
• Inequality continues: The highest earners (95th percentile) continue to pull away from middle- and low-wage workers.
• Policy matters: Wage growth at the bottom was strongest in states with minimum wage increases in 2019.
• Black–white wage gaps persist: In 2019, black wages exceeded their 2000 and 2007 levels across the wage distribution for the first time in this recovery. Even so, black–white wage gaps are significantly wider now than in 2000.
• Gender gaps defy educational attainment: Women with an advanced degree are paid, on average, less than men with a college degree.
• College graduates are losing ground: Wages for the bottom 50% of college graduates are lower today than they were in 2000.

The US economy has been good to those who hold stocks. But for those who rely upon a wage, the situation is stagnant. Except for those who live in states that legislated an increase in the minimum wage.