THIS has to be front and center

[MissMillie]

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

"From 1979 to 2018, net productivity rose 108.1 percent, while the hourly pay of typical workers essentially stagnated—increasing only 11.6 percent over 39 years (after adjusting for inflation). This means that although Americans are working more productively than ever, the fruits of their labors have primarily accrued to those at the top and to corporate profits, especially in recent years."

[SunSeeker]

1. K & R & Bookmarked!

[calimary]

2. Good data!

[Illumination]

3. Seems we have a huge distribution problem that needs fixing...

[Lonestarblue]

4. Thomas Piketty, the French economist, has two books that clearly identify the problem.

Other economists have written about income inequality and the transfer of wealth to the top 10% in the country, with much of that going to the 1%, that has been going on for decades. Piketty’s books have been international bestsellers.

Joseph Stieglitz is another economist worth reading. Many people in this country are economically illiterate, especially Republicans. Republican leaders latched onto Milton Friedman’s ideas of free market capitalism that have proved to be disastrous for the working class in the US. With Reagan’s “rising tide” slogan and the Republican promises that tax cuts for the wealthy create millions of new jobs, Republicans have sold their charlatan economics for decades. Now that the 1% has the bulk of the nation’s wealth, it will take an enormous effort to wrest even a bit of it away from them.

[MissMillie]

13. millions of jobs aren't worth anything

if a person needs 3 of them to get by.

[smirkymonkey]

15. +1000

[lastlib]

21. The "rising tide" has lifted all the yachts....

Those of us with just hollow logs get washed out to sea.

[rwsanders]

26. Wasn't Freidman's work the one that was found to be flawed because of a calculation error

in one of his spreadsheets?

[OldBaldy1701E]

28. Nah...

All we have to do is stop placing massive value on a little green piece of paper, and start placing value on humans. Oh wait... silly me... that ain't ever gonna happen around here. The American population has been programmed too well for that.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. This is wealth & income inequality writ large. Unsustainable. Revolutions have started for less. nt

[Joinfortmill]

6. Yup, we're getting screwed.

[jaxexpat]

7. It's uphill from here, all the damn way because....

you gotta make this known to people that willingly follow a monster who doesn't *understand what "per capita" means. (*He doesn't care either)

Yewer jist trinda steal ma guns with all them werds, commienist.



(*He doesn't care either)

[crickets]

8. AGREED. Dovetails nicely with another article from the same site, posted earlier today:

CEO compensation surged 14% in 2019 to $21.3 million
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213951907

Chief executive officers (CEOs) of the largest firms in the U.S. earn far more today than they did in the mid-1990s and many times what they earned in the 1960s or late 1970s. They also earn far more than the typical worker, and their pay—which relies heavily on stock-related compensation— has grown much more rapidly than typical worker pay. Importantly, rising CEO pay does not reflect rising value of skills, but rather CEOs’ use of their power to set their own pay. And this growing earning power at the top has been driving the growth of inequality in our country.

Why it matters: Exorbitant CEO pay is a major contributor to rising inequality that we could safely do away with. CEOs are getting more because of their power to set pay—and because so much of their pay (about three-fourths) is stock-related, not because they are increasing productivity or possess specific, high-demand skills. This escalation of CEO compensation, and of executive compensation more generally, has fueled the growth of top 1.0% and top 0.1% incomes, leaving less of the fruits of economic growth for ordinary workers and widening the gap between very high earners and the bottom 90%. The economy would suffer no harm if CEOs were paid less (or were taxed more).

[OMGWTF]

9. We don't need billionaires but they need us.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

20. Truth!👆

[pansypoo53219]

10. raising minimum wage would help.

[MuchBetterThanThis]

11. Ummm.. This has been "front and center" for years?

You can only scream but soo much about this or just understand that shit isn't gonna change overnight.
We, the people are making steps towards rectifying this. But, it's a "baby steps" proposition. And, we're getting closer to it being an actual issue even with the rich and powerful calling the shots.

The people are woke now. More tha ever..

[MissMillie]

14. I know I've heard a lot about inequality

I don't know that I ever hear anyone talk about how the productivity/wage relationship has gone to pot.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

12. Now that they've got about all the productivity they can squeeze out of us....

next they will want more years of work before retirement, to the point that retirement will become meaningless.

They're also doing everything possible to insure they own all our assets by the time we die and all our heirs will get is our ashes (for a nominal fee).


KY.........

[mrsadm]

16. OLD NEWS!

This has been known for at least 15 years- I lost count.

Read “The Economist”. Their web site is cheaper to read than the magazine.

[IronLionZion]

17. Automation and computers are killing jobs

Machines are big reason for the increased productivity with fewer people

[lostnfound]

19. Workers could have bought those instead, if they hadn't been starved and underpaid

I’ve often daydreamed, what if the cashiers had had a pile of cash around to pay for machines that replace their labor?

If automation was purchased by the workers (in a fantasy world), they could have cut back to ten hour weeks and gotten paid for forty.

If I could pay for a robot to do my job, or ten of us can, can I still collect my paycheck? “Entrepreneurs” can, but not workers.

When we watched the Jetsons, those laborsaving machines were presented as being able to give us ALL more free time and better lives.

[BadgerMom]

18. K/R

[oasis]

22. Ayn Rand Paul believes that's how it's supposed to work. nt

[drray23]

23. its very well known by any democrat who pays attention.

this has been pointed out countless times by many democrats and of course recently on the campaign trail. Bernie for example, was hammering it.

[bhikkhu]

24. No argument there

I started working as a mechanic in 1987, at $14.50 an hour. I was 25 years on the job (same work, various employers) before that bumped up to $15, and currently $18.50. Meanwhile the labor rates that people pay for the work I do have tripled, from $45 an hour to $150 an hour.

I was told at one time that most of the problem was health care expenses, which were pretty low when I started but gradually ate more and more of the budget for payroll. I'm not sure that accounts for all of it.

[Nitram]

25. Yes. This. The 1% be damned!

[Sherman A1]

27. K&R

Thanks for posting.

[malaise]

29. The pandemic will finally bury this neo-liberal bullshit

Great post - there is no market without society. There is no society without the social good.

[MissMillie]

30. Here's the stat that needs to be said over and over again...

If wages had kept up w/ productivity, the minimum wage would be higher than $21/hour.

I don't know that this is being said enough.

[dalton99a]

31. Kick