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

#331

Post by taeric » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

digitaltrees wrote: post #163

taeric wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to go on a limb and say half of the US is not living in abject poverty? Nor can I get behind the idea that quality of life for folks is on the down trend.

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 would fully get behind us paying service providers far more than we do. To wit, it baffles me when people are upset about how much we allocate to pay for services that go to older people, but then we don't do any effort to make sure the services are provided by younger people. Indeed, we seem to go out of our way to make sure the people providing these services are, themselves, low income. It is baffling.

But even this feels like it is overstating things. You say folks are one car repair away from being homeless. And there is a lot of polling that shows people would struggle to pay for repairs. But full on homelessness? I can only assume that you are describing towns/cities that offer no transport assistance at all, that lands people into being so dependent on a car. I believe it, but I struggle to think this is literally half the nation.

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

#332

Post by smallmancontrov » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #314

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.

Increases in labor productivity is a curious thing to think about. Do I deserve more wages for using AutoCad instead of drafting paper? - The amount I'm working hasn't increased. Still an 8 hour day. - My job honestly is easier than it used to be; certainly less menial. - Strictly speaking, the education requirement is actually lower . It's easier and a lower bar to learn to become a decent designer in AutoCad than t…

r>0 is not the problem, r>g is the problem, and that one's a lot less morally ambiguous.

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

#333

Post by torginus » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #47

nradov wrote: post #35

The actual labor share of income is significantly higher when you include employer contributions to employee health insurance premiums. Healthcare costs have been rising faster than overall inflation for decades, and while many of those costs are passed on to employees the employers have also absorbed a significant chunk. If we want to increase the labor share then we'll drive down healthcare spending. And no, there'…

> If we want to increase the labor share then we'll drive down healthcare spending. It may not be simple but it's clear the United States is doing something catastrophically wrong. All the other healthcare systems on the planet in developed countries have problems, sure. But we spend magnitudes more money to receive middling-to-shit healthcare. Medical debt and bankruptcy is a unique American problem that also happen…

What the US is doing is nonsensical. Modern Healthcare is an industrial system designed to handle large populations in bulk. But it only works if everyone can get timely access. This is true for things like mass screenings and medication.

The insane thing is denying it to half of the population doesn't really mean the other half gets to save that much money in real terms.

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

#334

Post by officeplant » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #239

atq2119 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't actually seem to be true based on a quick googling, i.e. Germany has somewhat higher median income. But in addition to the raw numbers, you have to keep in mind that they don't account for cost of living and that different countries account for various services differently, especially health care.

Totally understand that; but it counters the assertion of “abject poverty”. Perhaps relative poverty is a better descriptor but abject poverty is someone living in cardboard tents by the riverbank. Regular poor is living in section eight housing or subsidized housing. I don’t think we have 50% of Mississippians living in abject poverty.

As a gulf state resident, a whole lot of us live in shitty old shotgun houses that have been patched up hundreds of times just waiting for the next hurricane to wipe us out finally.

I would assume this doesn't account for Germans having different healthcare costs which will aboslutely wreck the average American household with how fucked our system has become.

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

#335

Post by palmotea » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

GlickWick wrote: post #316

palmotea wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The origin of the word is a bit darker than its meaning, unfortunately. We should all just stop speaking. The origin of too many words is problematic. Just think of how many were coined by racists and misogynists!

Nah, that's knee-jerk. Don't have a particular horse in this race, just explaining why some people might react this way to the word if they're aware of the history behind it. We as a society can determine whether or not we like certain words in our vernacular.

My point is: who cares about the origin of the word? IMHO, no one should. Unless the word used in a way meant to offend, it's fine. Otherwise you're kind of cultivating offense and over-sensitivity, helping it survive and grow, which helps no one.

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

#336

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

hash872 wrote: post #319

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence for this, at all?

Sure https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013b_e... https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/131/wp-107.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu/~yagan/LaborShare.pdf

Thanks very much for providing those sources.

That said, it's a huge pet peeve of mine when someone makes a statement, and then provides sources to back up that statement, but the actual sources contradict their original statement.

You stated "but AIUI this is mostly a statistical illusion caused by changes to US tax law- previously income that was attributed to 'labor' shifted over to LLCs/S corps for more beneficial tax rates." But then your very first linked article states "First, about a third of the decline in the published labor share appears to be an artifact of statistical procedures used to impute the labor income of the self-employed that underlies the headline measure."

I think there is a huge difference between 1/3 (while still a lot and an important factor) and what you wrote, "mostly a statistical illusion", especially since other substantial factors proposed in that article are things like offshoring.

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

#337

Post by contagiousflow » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

scottyah wrote: post #228

contagiousflow wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source for this statistically?

https://equitablegrowth.org/u-s-income-data-for-2024-shows-t... Bottom 50% is increasing income with the top 10%, it's the middle class that's declining in the last 5 years. This was a quick google search, so I'll ask you to provide a source that's contrary else your comment was purely rhetorical and made in bad faith.

Well I would implore you to read your own source. And maybe start hanging around groups that read more

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

#338

Post by limagnolia » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #314

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.

Increases in labor productivity is a curious thing to think about. Do I deserve more wages for using AutoCad instead of drafting paper? - The amount I'm working hasn't increased. Still an 8 hour day. - My job honestly is easier than it used to be; certainly less menial. - Strictly speaking, the education requirement is actually lower . It's easier and a lower bar to learn to become a decent designer in AutoCad than t…

And many laborers have retirement accounts and pension funds that are also capital owners, so they benefit from increases in capital too.

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

#339

Post by aeternum » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

wqaatwt wrote: post #107

aeternum wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn’t it the complete opposite? i.e. high automatization means that a single worker can create many times more value than before. However it reduces the demand for labor and worker bargaining power. So companies have no incentive to pair “fair” wages.

That is true but likely only temporarily. Why is the single worker even needed?

We tend to have a pretty human-centric worldview so if there's a single human working to keep a hotel running, our default is to attribute all the generated value to them when it really isn't the case. You can imagine that hotel at some point in the near future goes from requiring 1 worker to keep it running to zero.

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

#340

Post by torginus » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

ETH_start wrote: post #103

nradov wrote: post #35

The actual labor share of income is significantly higher when you include employer contributions to employee health insurance premiums. Healthcare costs have been rising faster than overall inflation for decades, and while many of those costs are passed on to employees the employers have also absorbed a significant chunk. If we want to increase the labor share then we'll drive down healthcare spending. And no, there'…

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…

This is true in the sense that if I sell water in the desert at $100 a bottle, at 900% profit margin, doesn't mean that if the government steps in and pays half of it, that the resulting system is somehow good, just because less people are dying of thirst.