Over longer periods this share increases with estimates suggesting that over a lifetime half of Americans will experience poverty (McKeman et al., Other, less important explanations are the increasing international integration of labour markets through trade and, more recently, off-shoring, and also the declining penetration of labour unions and the falling real value of the federal minimum wage. The reshaping of the income distribution in LIS countries”, a paper prepared for presentation at the conference on “Inequality and the Status of the Middle Class: lessons from the Luxembourg Income Study”, Luxembourg, 28-30 July.