Geographic Inequality Is Widening

Since the Great Recession, the economy has recovered on several key fronts—the stock market has rebounded, unemployment is down, the labor market has tightened, and employers are looking to fill jobs with talented workers. But for many millions of Americans, that recovery remains invisible: Their wages and productivity—two key measures of economic dynamism—have stagnated. Worse, both remain highly unequal and uneven across the nation, according to two new analyses.

The first analysis by the economic data and modeling firm Emsi finds the pace of wage gains across metros has been slower than would be expected given the economic recovery. Nationally, real private sector wages grew by 0.8 percent annually between 2012 and 2016, which is anemic given an unemployment rate of 4.4 percent or so.