[W]hen the United States emerged from war and depression, it had not only a considerably lower rate of unemployment, it also had a wage structure more egalitarian than at any time since. Claudia Goldin, Robert Margo: The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid-century. In: The Quarterly Journal of Economics. MIT Press, vol. 107(1) 1992, S. 1–34, S. 2.