1. What Do We Really Know About Changes in Wage Inequality;Katharine G Abraham;Thomas Lemieux, Labor in the New Economy,2007
2. which contains responses for hours worked "last year;The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes,2011
3. Following most of the literature, I trim extreme values of wages (less than $1 and more than $100 in 1979$) and keep workers aged sixteen to sixty-four with positive potential experience;Thomas Lemieux, Labor in the New Economy,2010
4. Since the underlying data used in the analysis was released in March of each year, I used the CPI indices as of Sept of the prior year, that being the mid-point of the past year. For Sept, 1979, the CPI was 74.6. For Sept. 2009, the CPI was 215.969. These CPI figures are as reported by Yale Professor Robert J. Shiller, available at www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data/ie_data.xls In 1980, benefits were 15.8% of employment costs;For purposes of this figure, real income has been calculated by an adjustment both for inflation as measured by the CPI and for increases over time in the benefits/wages ratio as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics,2010