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 offshoring 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 july