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

libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org

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

#301

Post by dismalaf »

legitster wrote: post #61

People are misreading the conclusion - the Covid related drop is normal and matches previous episodes, but the massive overall drop since 2000 is not. The situation on the ground is unchanged - the amount of labor being generated per person has not really changed, but the overall pie has grown massively around us.

Since 2000 the biggest economic change is software. While most workers doing physical jobs have only made themselves slightly more efficient (or maybe mass immigration has maybe even reduced efficiency in some sectors), some workers (tech workers) have made themselves hundreds or thousands of times more efficient and captured the gains as equity (either in their own startup, their job, etc...). The positive is that growth overall has still lifted living the average living standard.

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

#302

Post by torginus »

aeternum wrote: post #34
nimbius wrote: post #14

this is relatively unremarkable for those with an understanding of wage, labor, profit, price and capital. capitalism will always seek to reduce labor cost. during the epoch of neoliberalism it achieved great strides in this by reducing labor power through union busting by both thatcher and reagan in the UK and US respectively. it has also effectively curtailed any increase in the minimum wage for nearly 20 years as…

Marx fails to imagine a world in which labor actually has little to no value. His worldview is primarily that capitalists 'steal' the valuable labor. However it doesn't seem that that is actually the world we are in. Instead the intrinsic value of human labor seems to be slowly trending towards zero. And it kind of makes sense, same has happened with oxen labor, horse labor, etc.

> Marx fails to imagine a world in which labor actually has little to no value.

Marxism was an idea formulated especially as a reaction against a world where labor has lost almost all of its value. Which is precisely the origin of capitalism - the idea that money itself can be productive, and thus people who have lots of money can be expected to get more of it.

This was an untrue idea for most of human history, outside of the circles of moneylending and banking.

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

#303

Post by dismalaf »

dozerly wrote: post #90
legitster wrote: post #61

People are misreading the conclusion - the Covid related drop is normal and matches previous episodes, but the massive overall drop since 2000 is not. The situation on the ground is unchanged - the amount of labor being generated per person has not really changed, but the overall pie has grown massively around us.

We have one of the worlds most prosperous economies, and half of the US is living in abject poverty while quality of life for everyone is decreasing.

The poverty rate in the US is 10%.

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-28...

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

#304

Post by rglover »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #69
rglover wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It transitions back to a more feudalist state. The series finale to "you will own nothing and be happy." That is, if they're successful .

Is there any reason to believe they won't be?

People tend to get excited when they can't eat and despite its timidity America is exceptionally well-armed. That sounds cute in a post drone strike world, but if the government attacks its own citizens like that, they'll have a hell of a time defending that position to the rest of the world. Humanity is usually slow on the uptake but eventually settles on "how about you just go fuck yourself" even if the party takes a sec to get going.

Who knows. I think it's better to err on the side of optimism despite the grim outlook.

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

#305

Post by mistrial9 »

honeycrispy wrote: post #141
colechristensen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just rent. Rent for the homes we live in (including "rent" as mortgage payments to the bank) Rent passed through as costs to the consumer for the businesses we patronize. We're stuck at home more affording to be able to do less so the people who own don't have to work.

And it's wild to me how we can't seem to figure out how to bring the cost for this down. Building affordable houses should be our no. 1 priority.

repeated efforts to develop "dwelling units" on a large scale have collapsed in corruption. There are financial players who are very aware that there are vast amounts of monthly monies at play. This is not unique to the USA in fact it is a repeated theme in the capital economies.

The US Federal Housing and Urban Development Department was intimately involved in the Savings and Loan collapse of the late 1980s. It was punted around and repeated in the 1990s, but the stock market gains of the late 1990s diluted the news in public. That phase culminated with a dot-com bubble collapse and ultimately, the 2007 dollar credit crisis. Leveraged purchases of real estate were part of that financial soup. Many of the players from that time were "boomers" and their seniors, so living memory of those circumstances are now fading. There are many, many non-fiction books about these topics.

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

#306

Post by mancerayder »

Ekaros wrote: post #145
imightbebatman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar PoV. I think rent seeking without sufficient checks is one of the biggest problems in our economy. But the underlying problem that people aren't paid enough is still true. Outside a few fields, most people are underpaid. It's even more stark when measured against productivity increases during the same time periods. That wealth went somewhere. It wasn't to most people. People have a tendency to get up…

From outside it doesn't look like not being paid enough. It looks like affordability problem. Prices in general are too high. Rents in general are part of this. Both for housing and commercial property. Somehow getting profit from both rent and appreciation is the goal of the system. Well that is what population voted for and choose not to overthrow system for so maybe they deserve it.

Underlying rent are other things going up - property taxes, input costs like labor and materials, and insurance.

While we must be mindful of greed and abuse, we need to include all underlying costs before just assuming people are cranking up rents. I'm not a landlord but I own property and the costs are gotten vicious lately. Labor is expensive, materials are insane, energy costs, and now insurance are suffocating. And in states with high property taxes, watch out.

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

#307

Post by mrWiz »

logicchains wrote: post #186
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…

>I own a Medicaid home care agency in 13 states. We serve low income families and our caregivers There's an extreme selection bias there. If you run an agency that works with low income families you're not going to see a representative sample of the overall population.

If you read the rest of the comment you’ll find it’s about their employees rather than their clientele.

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

#308

Post by dmoy »

jancsika wrote: post #242
logicchains wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I own a Medicaid home care agency in 13 states. We serve low income families and our caregivers There's an extreme selection bias there. If you run an agency that works with low income families you're not going to see a representative sample of the overall population.

> There's an extreme selection bias there. Maybe. Unfortunately, what digitaltrees wrote here is ambiguous. It could also be read as this: Our caregivers serve low income families. Those caregivers, who are our employees, earn $12-18/hr which is above minimum wage. Our employees absolutely struggle. Our employees are the ones using food banks and housing assistance because many are one car repair away from homelessne…

I think the latter interpretation is correct. As in digitaltrees runs a business that does not pay its employees a living wage, who then have to rely on food banks and housing assistance.

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

#309

Post by nradov »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #246
nradov wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the rare type of person capable of becoming an orthopedic surgeon has other career options. There are some who are drawn to it as a calling because they love caring for patients and would do it regardless of wages. But most respond to economic incentives, so at the margins some will choose to go into technology or finance or something and make more money there. When we fix the price of something below the m…

If you as a person are turned off of a career because you can only make a mere, paltry peasant wage of $300k per year, then I think that's really a you problem there. And as to your comments about shortages, we already have shortages.

Feel free to moralize all you like about the maximum wages other people should earn if that makes you feel better but that won't solve any of the actual problems. In the real world, most people respond to economic incentives. Shortages can always get worse. (I am not a physician.)

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

#310

Post by PaulHoule »

throw0101a wrote: post #277
PaulHoule wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some goes to the capital class, some goes to workers. The Marxist eschatology is that there are pressures that cause the fraction that goes to capital increases over time and breaks the system.

Look at the good deal that the UAW has gotten for auto workers in the system, both US car makers and the union are pretty happy right to keep this system in place and shrink in the face of technological change like electrification not to mention abandoning small cars for large cars that are profitable for now.

(Funny how I often I see "good old boys" driving Asian compacts because they can afford Asian compacts, and I see office workers driving big-ass trucks)

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