For some time now, legislators have been eager to jack up subsidies for workers, whether it's by raising the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), hiking the minimum wage, or simply giving out cash benefits. Indeed, Democrats are hoping to achieve one of those goals—the EITC expansion—during the lame-duck session. One argument commonly used to justify these policies is that the link connecting worker productivity to wages has been broken for years. Workers, the argument goes, aren't capturing the gains from their rising productivity.
But common sense tells us to be skeptical that this link is broken. In fact, there are plenty of encouraging facts to report.
