Jobs are scarce and workers are feeling the pinch all around. Republicans would have you believe the government is to blame, limiting growth through bureaucracy. Democrats would have you believe that companies are simply greedy. But is the income of American workers really limited by a lack of growth or the avarice of a privileged few?

The short answer is just a bit more complicated. The distribution of the income has changed substantially since postwar America changed sometime around 1968. It’s not a failure of government or even the greediness of corporations, but a change in the most important market there is – the market for the talent and hard work of ordinary Americans.

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