The extra supply of labor brought into the global economy lowered the cost of labor leading to greater returns to capital at the expense of labor. American capital benefits from this gain, while American labor is lowered toward the new global mean. Other forces have been at work, but certainly it seems intuitive that globalization would not be a force for greater *equality* within the US.

American workers used to benefit somewhat unfairly from being ‘close to’ American capital. That advantage has been eroding steadily for decades now. But our political culture equates all Americans to the children of Lake Wobegon: we are ALL going to be above the global average. Too bad that is mathematically impossible.