U.S. Wage Trends The microeconomic picture of the U.S. has changed immensely since 1973, and the trends are proving to be consistently downward for the nation’s high school graduates and high school drop-outs. “Of all the reasons given for the wage squeeze – international competition, technology, deregulation, the decline of unions and defense cuts – technology is probably the most critical. It has favored the educated and the skilled,” says M. B. Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report (7/31/95). Since 1973, wages adjusted for inflation have declined by about a quarter for high school dropouts, by a sixth