The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level • Hacker News Board

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#271

Post by Folcon » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #203

Folcon wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what is your expected baseline of what the average person and family in the US should be able to afford?

"should" is a pretty woolly concept. "should" we have to work at all? UBI proponents don't think so, and that apparently that has 45% support. What's hopefully obvious is that not being able to afford a 2 bedroom apartment at median wage is a far cry from "abject poverty". https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/19/more-amer...

I mean fair, but not relevant?

I'm asking you the question because a statement like 50% of [population] is making a claim to some notion of what they expect society to look like

you introduced the benchmark "not being able to afford a 2 bedroom apartment at median wage", though I would expect a modern day society that makes any claim to be wealthy to be able to have above 50% of it's population to be able to support something like that as that would indicate they can support a small family

You're saying that's not a good benchmark, so I'm trying to understand:

1) Do you have a different benchmark?

2) Is your key complaint that being unable to own a 2 bedroom house doesn't mean that individual or family is in "abject poverty"? In which case fair, though I would ask what does mean abject poverty for you?

It seems like you're saying 2, but I want to be sure

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#272

Post by ETH_start » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

saghm wrote: post #140

ETH_start wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly agree that socializing the healthcare industry will not help in any way. To the extent that healthcare costs have skyrocketed, it's precisely because of government intervention in the U.S. Healthcare industry has massively increased over the last 50 years, especially in the form of tax incentives for employers to compensate employees by way of health insurance. Anyway, with respect to the labor share of in…

> To the extent that healthcare costs have skyrocketed, it's precisely because of government intervention in the U.S. Healthcare industry has massively increased over the last 50 years, especially in the form of tax incentives for employers to compensate employees by way of health insurance. It fails to follow logically that one specific way the government got involved that drove costs up means that any possible inte…

Health care costs across the developed world have skyrocketed for exactly the same structural reasons. Yes, implementations have been different in their details, but the larger structure is the same no matter where you look in the developed world. Government intervention has increased. That means more top-down management and less bottom-up self-organization based on private property and individual incentives.

This is not some spurious speculation. That market-based systems drive down costs enormously is replicated across dozens upon dozens of industries. It's one of the most replicable results in economics to the extent that economics can be replicable. As for why the costs in other countries are not quite as high as the U.S., it's because health care costs also increase as per capita GDP increases and the U.S. has higher per capita GDP. Moreover, because the U.S. has some aspects of its health care system still living more in the private sector, there is less top-down rationing. Other countries see very clear examples of rationing, so people spend less on end-of-life care.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#273

Post by ratelimitsteve » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #208

saghm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that we might as well just give up the pretense of a free market healthcare solution and just focus on what's humane.

Is it humane to leave a patient to die in an ambulance when a single-payer nationalized healthcare system is over capacity? https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/06/englands-nhs... I'm not trying to be snarky here, the point is that there is no easy solution and optimizing based on what politicians subjectively consider "humane" isn't going to get us anywhere. If we want to actually fix the problem then we nee…

is it humane to solve that problem by excluding people based on income? that's what your proposing, as that's how markets solve problems like this: if more people need a product/service than the market can provide prices go up and the poor are excluded. also not trying to be snarky but that's the choice in front of us. part of the problem with free market solutions to healthcare is the feasibility of walking away from a bad deal. in every other space prices are regulated downward by the buyers' ability to either buy something else or do without but there is no doing without emergency care and doing without preventive care is just deferring the cost until it's emergency care at punitive interest.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#274

Post by gruez » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

micromacrofoot wrote: post #249

gruez wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the top 1% have nearly as much income as the bottom 80% >link for "Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S. since 1989" income =/= wealth

The linked view of the chart is distributed by income percentile, the title is "Wealth by income percentile"

>The linked view of the chart is distributed by income percentile, the title is "Wealth by income percentile"

That's still measuring wealth, not income. The correct statement to draw from the chart is that top 1% by income have nearly as much wealth as the bottom 80%.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#275

Post by cityofdelusion » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:06 PM UTC

digitaltrees wrote: post #207

vdqtp3 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> half of the US is living in abject poverty Anyone who believes this has absolutely no concept of what abject poverty looks like.

If you’re only complaint is the word “abject”, I encourage you to try to live on anywhere from $7 to $15 an hour, in a part-time job that doesn’t guarantee week to week how many hours you’ll get. That is a very common reality.

My room mates all lived on slightly above minimum wage with part time hours. They were not in abject poverty. They were just plain poor. They still had cars, phones, video games, food, water, shelter. They each had an ACA plan heavily subsidized and probably were eligible for other welfare but didn’t use it as far as I am aware.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#276

Post by lkey » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:06 PM UTC

noahbp wrote: post #48

That most-recent spike during/post-COVID really puts into perspective just how unreasonable low-wage employers were to be so hysterical.

Capital be praised that capital owners are back on top.

May the low-waged ever be trodden upon and forever know their true place.

Those that died or became disabled during covid are mewling degenerates.

Their cries of 'illness', 'poverty', and 'homelessness' are precisely as useless as the wailing and lamentation of women in their menses, a farcical thing to be dismissed and ignored.

May the Fed be ever in your favor, Amen

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#277

Post by throw0101a » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #258

digitaltrees wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a Medicaid home care agency in 13 states. We serve low income families and our caregivers, who earn $12-18hr which is higher than minimum wage, absolutely struggle. We have created food banks and housing assistance because even working people are a few sick days or one car repair away from homelessness. I would encourage you to go work with average Americans in average towns. The facts on the ground are stark a…

Someone could interpret that as a lack of capitalism rather than the opposite. That is, Henry Ford changed the world because he deployed capital to make workers so productive that they could afford to buy the cars they make. A person paid to do child care in an organization with overhead, who has to pay taxes, etc. is not productive enough to put their own children in child care. So child care fails to revolutionize…

> Someone could interpret that as a lack of capitalism rather than the opposite.

In Capitalism surplus economic value goes to the Capital class, so it seems like it is working as designed.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#278

Post by rsalus » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #248

rsalus wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> amount of labor being generated per person has not really changed not true, labor productivity has been steadily increasing: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB workers are simply capturing less of the economic value generated by their labor.

Chart goes up, but you really need to look at percent change. Over the last 25 years it's averaged about 2% observation_date OPHNFB_PC1 2000-01-01 2.99256 2001-01-01 2.58092 2002-01-01 4.27146 2003-01-01 3.68422 2004-01-01 2.97991 2005-01-01 2.18582 2006-01-01 0.99665 2007-01-01 1.58927 2008-01-01 1.30737 2009-01-01 4.07061 2010-01-01 3.15513 2011-01-01 -0.02491 2012-01-01 0.93870 2013-01-01 0.59941 2014-01-01 1.0079…

2% is average. 1-1.5% is considered a slump, while anything over 2.5% is considered a boom. for instance, the post-ww2 boom (1947-1972) averaged 2.9%. at that rate of growth, a country's total output per worker doubles in roughly ~25 years.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#279

Post by legitster » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

digitaltrees wrote: post #194

legitster wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Abject poverty" is currently defined as living on less that $3 a day and dealing with things like chronic hunger and exposure. The best approximation would be the homeless population in the US (about 500k people), but even then most homeless would not even qualify. "Half" is a gross exaggeration.

The homeless number under estimates people with unstable housing that aren’t on the streets. I assure you that when your basic housing and nutrition are uncertain and missing even a few days of income will result in cascading effects of hunger and homelessness, the underlying stress is overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be this way, we don’t let bullies steal all the toys on the playground and destroy the very ecosyste…

I agree with all those things, but if we start making up numbers and definitions we're at risk of undoing actual progress.

Maybe it feels good to say "actually everyone is a victim of capitalism", but it muddies real necessary work when it comes to determining whether to prioritize how resources need to be allocated between a disabled person living on the streets vs a graduate student who is currently just a little underwater on their credit card payments.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#280

Post by gruez » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

Folcon wrote: post #271

gruez wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"should" is a pretty woolly concept. "should" we have to work at all? UBI proponents don't think so, and that apparently that has 45% support. What's hopefully obvious is that not being able to afford a 2 bedroom apartment at median wage is a far cry from "abject poverty". https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/19/more-amer...

I mean fair, but not relevant? I'm asking you the question because a statement like 50% of [population] is making a claim to some notion of what they expect society to look like you introduced the benchmark "not being able to afford a 2 bedroom apartment at median wage", though I would expect a modern day society that makes any claim to be wealthy to be able to have above 50% of it's population to be able to support…

>In which case fair, though I would ask what does mean abject poverty for you?

The exact number is heavily contested[1], so I know better than to provide my own. That said, the official poverty lines are a pretty good place to start, and it's pretty safe to say is that whatever the line for "abject poverty" actually is, "2 bedroom apartment on 1 person income" is pretty far away from that. That claim doesn't require me to provide a specific poverty line.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#M...