Consolidated Advantage: New Organizational Dynamics of Wage Inequality

The two main axes of inequality in the U.S. labor market—occupation and workplace—have increasingly consolidated. In 1999, largest share employment at high-paying workplaces was blue-collar production workers, but by 2017 it managers professionals. As such, workers benefiting from a workplace are those who already benefit membership occupation. Drawing on occupation-by-workplace data, we show that up to two-thirds rise wage since 1999 can be accounted for not occupation or alone, this increased consolidation. Consolidation is primarily due outsourcing occupations shifting across fixed set workplaces. Instead, consolidation has resulted new bases pay premiums. Workplace premiums associated with teams professionals have increased, while previously high-paid been cut. Yet source bifurcation social sector, whereby some low-paying high-professional workplaces, like hospitals schools, deskilled their jobs, others raised pay. Broadly, results demonstrate an understudied way organizations affect inequality: directly increasing variability premiums, consolidating these sources inequality.