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Working Paper
The Long-Term Decline of the U.S. Job Ladder
We quantify how structural changes in the U.S. labor market have contributed to wage stagnation over the past four decades by weakening the job ladder. Using Current Population Survey microdata from 1982–2023 and a partial-equilibrium job-ladder model, we estimate that employed workers today are about half as likely to receive a better-paying outside offer as they were in the 1980s. This decline is unlikely to reflect less efficient matching, weaker labor demand, or changes in workers’ acceptance behavior. Instead, cross-state variation is consistent with rising employer concentration and ...