Felix Oberholzer-Chi

If we really care about income inequality, seeing that low-wage workers make more progress than everyone else in the distribution of income, that's a really important argument.

So I think the labor market all in all has been really fantastic news for the most vulnerable groups.

Yes, that sounds exactly right to me.

And I would say...

Two things have changed.

One is this observation that there's a really hot labor market for hourly workers.

This observation that the very best way to participate in these wage increases is to change jobs.

And so you can think that competition overall has heated up.

And then there's also something a little bit about the mindset.

I don't know if you remember, but the three of us had a conversation about minimum wage in Seattle.

And we debated at that point in time, yeah, $13 is maybe okay, but $15, oh my God, we're so worried how many jobs you will destroy and it's just completely irresponsible.

I think the conversation has shifted so much.

There I see an openness to thinking about higher wages that definitely the three of us didn't really have.

And I didn't really see it among executives a couple of years ago.

Yeah, I completely agree.

I think it's one of the puzzles a little bit about the current times.

You open the newspaper and you think we're in free fall.

And then you look at the data and you say, oh my God, we have such an incredibly strong economy.

In fact, our only problem is that we probably overheated the economy with all the additional government spending and then the super loose monetary policy on top of that.

But the general mood is not one of we're living in the best of times.