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

#391

Post by impossiblefork » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

joe_mamba wrote: post #372

impossiblefork wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but German society is structured to require much less energy, just as Dutch society is structured to use much less land. If you put Germans whose lives function in a US-style, even just getting to work will be a huge drag. Misery depends on the structure of society. Here in Sweden I can walk to work. This means that I'm spending zero money on travel to work, and that my travel to work contributes $0 to Swedish G…

>Here in Sweden I can walk to work. That's you. but nobody In Sweden drives to work? I see walking to work as an relative to each individual and their job lcoatiopna dn circumstance of where they live, not a country related thing. For example, ,ost of my jobs in EU that me and my gF had required a car to get to work because companies put their offices out in the boonies to save money so walking was not an option, and…

>That's you. but nobody In Sweden drives to work?

A smaller fraction than in the US. I think most people I know drive.

>I see walking to work as an relative to each individual and their job lcoatiopna dn circumstance of where they live, not a country related thing.

Well, it isn't. It's about how walkable environments are.

>GDP growth "experts" would disagree. It's the reason we don't have mandatory WFH for white collar jobs after Covid proved it's possible and salves the environment

Well, they may disagree, but the whole point is the goal of society isn't GDP, since GDP is easy to game with things like creating situation where people are effectively forced to waste energy, drive to work-- that sort of thing.

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

#392

Post by joe_mamba » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

didgetmaster wrote: post #350

vannevar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is consistent with the observation that the top 10% have captured a disproportionate share of GDP growth over the past few decades. https://equitablegrowth.org/new-data-reveal-how-u-s-economic... "The past three economic expansions have largely benefitted the top 10 percent. In each, the top decile received between 47 percent and 59 percent of all income growth in the expansion."

Every discussion about the 'top 10%' seems to make the underlying assumption that the set of people who fall under that category are consistent. While there are certainly individuals who enter the top 10% (or top 1%) and stay there; there are large numbers of people who move in and out of those categories. For me personally, I am in the top 10%; but a few decades ago, I was not.

Here's what I found asking AI:

  US Household Wealth Distribution (Q1 2026, Fed DFA)

  Group       | Share of US Total Net Worth
  ------------|-------------------------
  Top 0.1%    | 14.4%
  Top 1%      | 31.6%
  Top 10%     | 67.9%
              | 
  Bottom 90%  | 32.1%
  Bottom 50%  | 2.5%

So, the top 10% holds roughly as much wealth as the bottom 90% combined.

The top 1% alone holds more than the entire bottom 90% minus the upper-middle segment.

To be in the top 10% you would need roughly 1,8 Million $ in assets (that's probably 90% of HN useerbase)

Basically, the bottom 50% are a slave class that doesn't even participate in the economy.

LE: The richest 20% are the only ones powering the U.S. economy, per Moody's Zandi. K-shaped economy all the way.

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

#393

Post by porridgeraisin » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

tancop wrote: post #366

vondur wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't most of the tech workers here part of that 10% and I'd assume they own houses in some of the most expensive areas, so they are technically part of the capital class?

defining classes is complicated. if you do it based on income percentile it will always be arbitrary and never reflect actual economic relations. the most accepted way to divide in socialist circles is based off where your income comes from, your relation to capital. if you have to work for someone else thats working class (proletariat), if you can be independent you are professional or middle class, if you own the m…

"I define things so that I'm in the good set and _they_ are in the bad set".

It's also utterly deranged even when you just consider that most tech workers get compensated with stock.

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

#394

Post by ajross » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #376

ajross wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reference you can cite with corrected numbers? Honestly this sounds like excuse-making, especially when used as a jumping point into a decidedly partisan take (complete with scare quotes!) on the essentially unrelated subject of public health care financing. The idea seems to have merit, but it's unconvincing to people outside your bubble and I'm dubious.

You misinterpreted by comment. It was not partisan, and was based on reality and cold economics rather than ideology. None of the major US political parties have workable reform proposals that could actually be implemented and achieve net positive results. This is a complex topic with no tl;dr possible. If you want to be able to participate in discussions on a rational, quantitative basis then a good starting point i…

> [my comment] was not partisan, and was based on reality and cold economics rather than ideology

That's what all partisans think. Nonetheless you put needless scare quotes around Medicare for All, dismissed it as a "total fantasy", and, I guess, helpfully suggested I read a book by (literally!) the head of the Trump administration's FDA as a reference for "What Broke American Health Care".

If that was all done in good faith, then you're in an echo chamber and need to escape.

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

#395

Post by tancop » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #6

scrumbledober wrote: post #3

it feels like every share of income is at its lowest except for the ultra wealthy.

It’s not. There are plenty of non-wealthy people who make money from things other than their labor. Small-time landlords are an example, as would be anyone who owns a small business and draws cash from profits rather than taking a salary.

im going to be controversial and say no one should have anything other than labor as their main income until they retire.

anything you can do thats useful to society counts as labor (but not vice versa, you can work as a robber or corporate lobbyist). from line cooks to wall street ceos to open source volunteers and stay at home moms who dont get paid but still work. landlords and executives count because management is labor too.

if your income comes from a trust fund or owning properties that you dont manage thats a passive reward for doing nothing. you are not productive. you are a parasite living on the back of everyone else and expecting indefinite rewards for a fixed amount of work you or your parents did years ago.

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

#396

Post by nradov » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

saghm wrote: post #377

nradov wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. On the contrary, most politicians seem very adamantly against what I'm proposing. I don't know why you think I'm suggesting that we delegate how we determine what's humane to politicans.

That is the inevitable consequence of your suggestion. In any national healthcare system, it's ultimately the politicians who have to make choices about the incentives that drive the behavior of every other participant.

Is it humane to spend $100K of public funds to extend the life of a terminal cancer patient by 6 weeks? Some would say yes, others no. Those are real choices that have to be made and in the most expensive parts of the healthcare system there is no clear consensus on what is "humane".

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

#397

Post by mc32 » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 6:37 PM UTC

officeplant wrote: post #334

mc32 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you believe about 50% of Mississippians live in abject poverty as put forth by GGP poster? The kind of poverty you saw in Dust Bowl era workers or Weimar era Germany or 3rd would today? Sure people may not be middle class but they are not in abject poverty where they steal chickens, shit on the street, sell their relatives into servitude and barely have two changes of clothing. At least I don’t think so. What those people live would be middle class for counties where there is lots of abject poverty.

People watch too many influencers and lose track of reality -it’s not all Beverly Hills and Kardashians and Real Wives of X-town everywhere. That’s fantasyland.

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

#398

Post by ETH_start » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

lesam wrote: post #173

ETH_start wrote: post #86

I wonder if labor itself will become an anachronism in the age of AI. Perhaps the future economic landscape will be dominated by capital because everyone will own capital. You will command a small army of agents to do whatever you want. You will no longer need to work for someone. You own small businesses far more than you could possibly operate in the pre-AI era and they will mostly operate autonomously with minimal…

Assuming your labour contribution to these agents is 'minimal': Why would you own them, instead of some well capitalized billionaire? To the extent that you do have capital, why do you assume that your 'minimal direction and guidance' would outcompete a full time specialist working for that billionaire?

Assuming agent costs keep declining exponentially as they have over the last three years, why would everyone not own some agents? It's not like the number of agents is capped and the billionaires hoard all of them. I imagine it would be more like smartphones, where there were only 50 million smartphones after the iPhone was first released in 2007 and now there are something like three billion. They become more accessible and plentiful over time. Same thing should apply to agents.

And in this world of abundant agents, what advantage does the billionaire have exactly over the non-billionaire? Their employees are less motivated than owner-operators, and they no longer have the scale advantage that large corporations used to have. Each individual can effectively operate like a large corporation, because each individual can have their own large synthetic workforce at very low cost. The scarce resource here then becomes uniquely human insights and real motivation, which entrepreneurs are always going to have more of than employees.

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

#399

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

zer00eyz wrote: post #283

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.

The chart you're showing, absolutely reflects the reality of some of the most productive segments of our economy. Ford now makes more cars, with fewer people. Sears used to have people who took photos, laid out catalogs, opened envelopes (with checks in them).... Amazon has none of that. We replaced switch board operators, with mechanical, then digital switching. More calls routed, fewer people required. go back 45 y…

One cause for lack of productivity gains is Baumol's cost disease, which generally affects organizations involving N different people (for N>1) where for one or more reasons N cannot be meaningfully reduced, if at all. Orchestras are the canonical example.

There's a variant of this, however, in activities that are done essentially by 1 person (as is true for most of the examples you mention in your last paragraph). You can improve their individual productivity - more pipes fixed, more joints welded, more patients well-attended to (*) - but in the end you cannot get rid of the individual doing the work in the way automated manufacturing has.

(*) even with a nurse though, this starts to break down for activities where time is a critical part of whatever is being done. Sometimes caring well for a person is primarily a matter of spending time with them, and this is certainly true for teaching as well. In such cases, you cannot make the person "more productive" no matter what technologies you might provide them with.

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

#400

Post by joe_mamba » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

impossiblefork wrote: post #391

joe_mamba wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Here in Sweden I can walk to work. That's you. but nobody In Sweden drives to work? I see walking to work as an relative to each individual and their job lcoatiopna dn circumstance of where they live, not a country related thing. For example, ,ost of my jobs in EU that me and my gF had required a car to get to work because companies put their offices out in the boonies to save money so walking was not an option, and…

>That's you. but nobody In Sweden drives to work? A smaller fraction than in the US. I think most people I know drive. >I see walking to work as an relative to each individual and their job lcoatiopna dn circumstance of where they live, not a country related thing. Well, it isn't. It's about how walkable environments are. >GDP growth "experts" would disagree. It's the reason we don't have mandatory WFH for white coll…

>but the whole point is the goal of society isn't GDP

Then why are people(westerners mostly) bullying Japan for stagnant GPD growth and refusing mass migration to boost their GDP?