Workers’ share of national income plummets to record low

[Spoonman]

Over the last decade, the share of U.S. national income taken home by workers has plummeted to a record low.

Check out the chart below, compiled by the Labor Department, and posted this week by conservative writer David Frum. It shows that the decline began with the brief recession that followed 9/11 in 2001. But it continued even as the economy picked up again, and got even worse once the Great Recession hit. In the weak recovery since then, workers' share of income just kept on falling.

Workers’ share of national income plummets to record low - Yahoo! News


Best line -

Still, there's little sense that either Obama administration or Congress plan to do much about this growing inequality. Indeed, any serious action to boost the economy and cut unemployment now seems to be off the table.

 

[expat_panama]

Over the last decade, the share of U.S. national income taken home by workers has plummeted to a record low.

Check out the chart below, compiled by the Labor Department...

ok, we'll check it but it was compiled by the Fed, not the Labor Dept (that's Yahoo's first mistake). here it is:

...the economy picked up again, and got even worse once the Great Recession hit. In the weak recovery since then, workers' share of income just kept on falling...

No, the index they've got plotted there (PRS85006173) is not Labor's share of income, that's labor's share of output. Here's that index plus total output plus workers compensation:

--showing worker's pay is at an all time high along with productivity. So Yahoo really got it all wrong. That's not news.

 

[Spoonman]

Over the last decade, the share of U.S. national income taken home by workers has plummeted to a record low.

Check out the chart below, compiled by the Labor Department...

ok, we'll check it but it was compiled by the Fed, not the Labor Dept (that's Yahoo's first mistake). here it is:

...the economy picked up again, and got even worse once the Great Recession hit. In the weak recovery since then, workers' share of income just kept on falling...

No, the index they've got plotted there (PRS85006173) is not Labor's share of income, that's labor's share of output. Here's that index plus total output plus workers compensation:

--showing worker's pay is at an all time high along with productivity. So Yahoo really got it all wrong. That's not news.

uhm, wouldn't the fed be trying to paint a rosier picture? I think you got it all wrong

 

[expat_panama]

...uhm, wouldn't the fed be trying to paint a rosier picture? I think you got it all wrong

If you have better worker income numbers please share them, or you don't then just agree the fed's graph of BLS numbers is the best we have. We'd been working on the facts concerning workers' incomes and productivity, and now the focus is going over to my having something wrong about the Fed's motivation on something for some reason. Now, I'm not all that good at head games with motivations and personalities so I'll pass on that and leave it to them that can, and I'll stick to income facts.

 

[Old Rocks]

Hmmm...... apples and bananas. One graph was the workers share of the wealth generated by his labor. And his share is falling. The other was compensation, based on dollars per hour. Which is up, just the dollars don't buy very much.

 

[asterism]

Hmmm...... apples and bananas. One graph was the workers share of the wealth generated by his labor. And his share is falling. The other was compensation, based on dollars per hour. Which is up, just the dollars don't buy very much.

Based on inflation adjusted dollars per hour, which shows a clear trend up. That means an hour's labor buys much more now than they did in 2005 (and every year since 1950).

 

[uscitizen]

Over the last decade, the share of U.S. national income taken home by workers has plummeted to a record low.

Check out the chart below, compiled by the Labor Department...

ok, we'll check it but it was compiled by the Fed, not the Labor Dept (that's Yahoo's first mistake). here it is:

...the economy picked up again, and got even worse once the Great Recession hit. In the weak recovery since then, workers' share of income just kept on falling...

No, the index they've got plotted there (PRS85006173) is not Labor's share of income, that's labor's share of output. Here's that index plus total output plus workers compensation:

--showing worker's pay is at an all time high along with productivity. So Yahoo really got it all wrong. That's not news.

uhm, wouldn't the fed be trying to paint a rosier picture? I think you got it all wrong

Overall labors share is dropping while the dollars per hour goes up.
Hmm. Think about it a while folks. The few are are in the upper 1% is going up and the rest is going down.
It does not take but a few Wall Street bonuses and such to skew a lot of data.

 

[Spoonman]

Hmmm...... apples and bananas. One graph was the workers share of the wealth generated by his labor. And his share is falling. The other was compensation, based on dollars per hour. Which is up, just the dollars don't buy very much.

which is exactly why the worker is in worse shape.

 

[whitehall]

Over the last decade, the share of U.S. national income taken home by workers has plummeted to a record low.

Check out the chart below, compiled by the Labor Department, and posted this week by conservative writer David Frum. It shows that the decline began with the brief recession that followed 9/11 in 2001. But it continued even as the economy picked up again, and got even worse once the Great Recession hit. In the weak recovery since then, workers' share of income just kept on falling.

Workers’ share of national income plummets to record low - Yahoo! News


Best line -

Still, there's little sense that either Obama administration or Congress plan to do much about this growing inequality. Indeed, any serious action to boost the economy and cut unemployment now seems to be off the table.

Do the neo-socialists think there is a figure that denotes "the workers share" in the US economy? What is "the worker's share"? Anyone with half a brain would understand that Obama's "green economy" doesn't exist. Corporations are paralized by Obama's anti-capitalist policies and his crazy paranoia about the US Chamber of Commerce being a sinsiter tool of the republican party. The private sector doesn't trust Obama or the current flock of democrat fools. When unemployment is "officially" just under 10% you can count on it being closer to 20%. When (as Obama admitted) "we underestimated the shovel ready jobs" it leaves service and retail jobs to pick up the slack. What happens when the economy relies on that kind of job pool? Do you expect store clerks and floor polishers to make $200,000 per year because it is "their share"? Corporations ain't expanding so they ain't hiring high salary workers. Use your heads lefties. It ain't a conspiracy. The difference in "the worker's share" is a result of the neo-socialist shift against capitalism.

 

[Sallow]

Since the 1980s the Right has been doing their damnest to remove worker rights with things like "Right to work" states, smashing unions, changing overtime rules, cutting regulations, financing risk with tax payer dollars, privatizing profit, underfunding regulators, rewarding near and off shoring with tax breaks, removing collective bargaining, giving tax cuts to the rich and gutting campaign finance laws.

So this is a surprise to who, really?

The right is well on their way to turning the US into a third world country with big guns.

Bravo, fuckers. Bravo.

 

[expat_panama]

Hmmm...... apples and bananas. One graph was the workers share of the wealth generated by his labor. And his share is falling. The other was compensation, based on dollars per hour. Which is up, just the dollars don't buy very much.

which is exactly why the worker is in worse shape.

Looks like we started with learning the article's "incomes-are-down" is not true. So then we decide that "up-incomes" are still bad because we really didn't want higher incomes anyway because our absolute conviction is that workers always suffer. That's sick but hey, don't get me wrong, I hold absolute beliefs concerning work too. Mine are that people are good when they earn a livelihood, that work is sacred worship, that science and religion agree, and that we search for truth and are humble before the facts. We need absolutes to know what's right and wrong, not for deciding we're good and others are bad.

Day to day workplace realities have some good things along with bad things and we need to be able to see both when they happen. Incomes are up and that's good. Increased long term unemployment is bad and that's a different thread.

 

[editec]

Over the last decade, the share of U.S. national income taken home by workers has plummeted to a record low.

Check out the chart below, compiled by the Labor Department, and posted this week by conservative writer David Frum. It shows that the decline began with the brief recession that followed 9/11 in 2001. But it continued even as the economy picked up again, and got even worse once the Great Recession hit. In the weak recovery since then, workers' share of income just kept on falling.

Workers’ share of national income plummets to record low - Yahoo! News


Best line -

Still, there's little sense that either Obama administration or Congress plan to do much about this growing inequality. Indeed, any serious action to boost the economy and cut unemployment now seems to be off the table.

Short of RADICAL CHANGES in the social contract, there's damned all little that can be done about this development.

Any move to change this dynamic will be couched as a THREAT to capitalism.

Of course many of us, both on the right AND the left, see that we do not actually live in a truly CAPITALIST society, but nevertheless that charge that such changes are a threat to pure capitalism will have merit.

 

[Unzinkable]

With all the posters blaming Republican policy and calling for revolution, they've decided to bury this news. The link is no longer any good, and when I google it, it only shows up on blog sites.

Just like in China.

 

[Wiseacre]

With all the posters blaming Republican policy and calling for revolution, they've decided to bury this news. The link is no longer any good, and when I google it, it only shows up on blog sites.

Just like in China.

Maybe they buried it cuz there's no explanation for what the graph is actually saying. Who knows what those funky numbers mean on the vertical axis or how they counted "workers".

 

[expat_panama]

...The link is no longer any good, and when I google it, it only shows up on blog sites. Just like in China.

No, the Yahoo writer finally realized that he totally misunderstood what 'workers share of output' was, and that his headline about lower worker incomes was completely untrue. The only questions that remain is whether he got fired and whether anyone here besides me noticed what his graph was really about.

 

[kiwiman127]

In real dollars ( constant dollar) wages have been dropping since have fallen greatly since 1978.

REAL WAGES
1964-2004
Average Weekly Earnings (in 1982 constant dollars)
For all private nonfarm workers
Year Real $ Change
1964 302.52
1965 310.46 2.62%
1966 312.83 0.76%
1967 311.30 -0.49%
1968 315.37 1.31%
1969 316.93 0.49%
1970 312.94 -1.26%
1971 318.05 1.63%
1972 331.59 4.26%
1973 331.39 -0.06%
1974 314.94 -4.96%
1975 305.16 -3.11%
1976 309.61 1.46%
1977 310.99 0.45%
1978 310.41 -0.19%
1979 298.87 -3.72%
1980 281.27 -5.89%
1981 277.35 -1.39%
1982 272.74 -1.66%
1983 277.50 1.75%
1984 279.22 0.62%
1985 276.23 -1.07%
1986 276.11 -0.04%
1987 272.88 -1.17%
1988 270.32 -0.94%
1989 267.27 -1.13%
1990 262.43 -1.81%
1991 258.34 -1.56%
1992 257.95 -0.15%
1993 258.12 0.07%
1994 259.97 0.72%
1995 258.43 -0.59%
1996 259.58 0.44%
1997 265.22 2.17%
1998 271.87 2.51%
1999 274.64 1.02%
2000 275.62 0.36%
2001 275.38 -0.09%
2002 278.91 1.28%
2003 279.94 0.37%
2004 277.57 -0.84%



Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)

For those who aren't aware of the what Real Dollars are, go to this link:
How to convert Nominal Dollars to Real Dollars

 

[Spoonman]

Since the 1980s the Right has been doing their damnest to remove worker rights with things like "Right to work" states, smashing unions, changing overtime rules, cutting regulations, financing risk with tax payer dollars, privatizing profit, underfunding regulators, rewarding near and off shoring with tax breaks, removing collective bargaining, giving tax cuts to the rich and gutting campaign finance laws.

So this is a surprise to who, really?

The right is well on their way to turning the US into a third world country with big guns.

Bravo, fuckers. Bravo.

ok, talk to any of those workers in the right to work states and they are happy as hell. They have jobs. Their jobs haven't been outsourced. What a concept, keeping jobs in the USA. Damn those republicans and their ideas.

 

[expat_panama]

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)...

The link in your post yielded "Oops! Seems there has been a problem. Page cannot be found"

No matter, wages don't include benefits and other income --and don't forget taxes too. What we need is total income per person after taxes adjusted for inflation, and that's what's called "Disposable Personal Income: Per capita: Chained (2005) Dollars"--

--which was doing fine until 2009.

 

[kiwiman127]

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)...

The link in your post yielded "Oops! Seems there has been a problem. Page cannot be found"

No matter, wages don't include benefits and other income --and don't forget taxes too. What we need is total income per person after taxes adjusted for inflation, and that's what's called "Disposable Personal Income: Per capita: Chained (2005) Dollars"--

--which was doing fine until 2009.

Try this,,,
http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)

The CPI in January, 1978 was 62.5, the CPI for January, 2011 was 220.223. Taking this in account with average 1978 wage of 310.41 per week that translates into 1092.64 per week for the average wage in 2011 or 56,817 a year.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly non farm wage was 22.98 an hour or 47,798 a year for June 2011. ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt The CPI was at 225.964 (a five point jump from January).

This clearly shows a drop in wages.

Also, benefits have been dropping. Gone are the days of profit sharing, great medical benefits and employer matching participation in 401Ks. Profit sharing is a thing of the past,, more and more companies are offering higher deductible health plans and fewer and fewer employers are backing away from employer matching 401Ks.

 

[expat_panama]

...clearly shows a drop in wages....

We hear that a lot from the left. Labor uses it as a bargaining tool and party hacks use it as a populist chant and what I said is it doesn't matter because a drop in wages ignores benefits and other income which we now know is up.

...benefits have been dropping. Gone are the days of profit sharing, great medical benefits and employer matching participation in 401Ks...

We hear that a lot from the left too and although the numbers are there to prove the wage complaint they're gone when benefits are panned. It still doesn't matter because there's a lot of income people enjoy besides wages and benefits, and total after tax real income per person is three times what it was in 1960.

It's more than good, it's amazing.