Minnesotans take great pride in their state as a good place to live, work, raise a family, and fish for walleye. And with good reason. Wall Street is reacting to these indicators with record-breaking profits.
Statistics point to the lowest unemployment in decades, and a bullish stock market.
And yet the gains to most workers have gone up in smoke. Everyone else has shared only 3 percent of the income gains. That means that the typical American family is living on less than it did years ago, adjusted for inflation. Last year, salaries and benefits for workers had their smallest rise since the Labor Department started keeping these records in 1980. There are three main theories for how to address the wage gap.