Today’s U.S. Census Bureau figures provide further evidence that America’s working families have experienced a “lost decade” of falling incomes from 2000 to 2012.

• From 2000 to 2012, median income for non-elderly households fell $7,490, or 11.6%.
• Median income for African American households fell $5,838, or 14.8%.
• Median income for Hispanic households fell $5,219, or 11.8%.
• From 1973 to 2012, median earnings for men working full-time fell from $51,668 to $49,398.

We are all familiar with the standard textbook argument for why minimum wage is harmful to job creation. The standard view, which in political discourse has also come to be known as the conservative view, holds the minimum wage to be bad for all concerned. And yet, there is a conservative view to be made in favor of the minimum wage, and regular increases in the minimum wage, on the grounds that its neglected macroeconomic effects also would militate against another thing that conservatives hold to be equally as bad: redistribution. 

Middle-class wages have been stagnant for more than 30 years. Stagnant wages are due to many factors, including the decline in unionism, the decline in the value of the minimum wage, rising health care costs and the need to cut non-fixed cost, i.e., labor, because of global competition.

Many of us and our families have felt the pinch of stagnant wages during the past several years, and a new study shows that while real wages (adjusted for inflation) fell by 2.8% across the board between 2009 and 2012, low- and middle-wage workers—especially women—took the brunt of the hit.  

The money that hasn’t been going into workers’ paychecks while wages have stagnated for decades has been found. It’s been diverted to corporate profits and, according to a new study, that money was rerouted because of a decline in union membership—not the technology and computerization that’s boosted productivity and eliminated jobs.  

The U.S. economy added no jobs in August—that’s ZERO jobs—and the nation’s unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data out this morning.