by Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens at Economic Policy Institute take a look at why wages have been relatively flat compared to productivity gains in the US economy, inequality of compensation, and declining share of income between labor and capital. Broad strokes but helps with context and suggesting ideas for current government actions. Inequalities abound in the U.S. economy, and a central driver in recent decades is the widening gap between the hourly compensation of a typical (median) worker and productivity—the income generated per hour of work. This growing divergence has been driven by two other widening gaps, that between the compensation received by the vast majority of workers and those at the top, and that between labor’s share of
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Dan Crawford considers the following as important: Taxes/regulation, US EConomics, US/Global Economics, wage inequality
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Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens at Economic Policy Institute take a look at why wages have been relatively flat compared to productivity gains in the US economy, inequality of compensation, and declining share of income between labor and capital. Broad strokes but helps with context and suggesting ideas for current government actions.
Inequalities abound in the U.S. economy, and a central driver in recent decades is the widening gap between the hourly compensation of a typical (median) worker and productivity—the income generated per hour of work. This growing divergence has been driven by two other widening gaps, that between the compensation received by the vast majority of workers and those at the top, and that between labor’s share of income and capital’s. This paper presents evidence that the divorce between the growth of median compensation and productivity, the inequality of compensation, and the erosion of labor’s share of income has been generated primarily through intentional policy decisions designed to suppress typical workers’ wage growth, the failure to improve and update existing policies, and the failure to thwart new corporate practices and structures aimed at wage suppression. Inequality will stop rising, and paychecks for typical workers will start rising robustly in line with productivity, only when we enforce labor standards and embrace policies that reestablish individual and collective bargaining power for workers.