A new study from the N.C. Budget and Tax Center confirms what a lot of worker advocates have been saying for some time: average North Carolina workers are working harder and more productively than ever but their their wages are stagnant or falling. Meanwhile, high end jobs continue to grow, thus contributing to a two-tier labor market in which mid-level wage employment is disappearing as the jobs are outsourced overseas.

Here are the key findings:

The economic recovery from the Great Recession is different from any recovery in the last 30 years, as seen in unprecedentedly sluggish job creation and, perhaps most obviously, falling wages.

A unique feature of the current sluggish recovery is the productivity gap, in which—for the first time in 30 years—rising worker productivity (a key driver of economic growth) is not being rewarded with higher wages.

This productivity gap has contributed to the emergence of a two-tier labor market, with growth in low-wage and high-wage occupations, but little growth in between. The result is the worst wage inequality seen in 30 years.

Read the entire report by clicking here.