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Brad DeLong is surprised by this chart:

I suspect this is surprising only to people like Brad and me (and most of our readers): that is, college educated, white collar workers who make pretty good incomes and work in jobs where continual lifetime advancement is the norm. But that’s definitely not the norm for the vast majority of the country. If you work as a truck driver or a waitress or an accounts payable clerk, then by the time you’re 40 you’ve peaked out. Your job pays what it pays, and once you’ve accumulated a few years of experience you make as much as you’re ever going to make. It’s a different world from the one lived in by the upper middle class, and unfortunately, it’s an increasingly foreign one to a lot of us.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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