A Pay-Raise Rant Goes Bad and Reveals Angst of American Workers
Bloomberg
January 12, 2018, 11:24 AM EST
The jobless rate may be near the lows it reached at the end of the 1990s boom – but that’s partly because many Americans have given up on job-seeking. The share of the working-age population that’s actually in work hasn’t recovered to the level it reached before the Great Recession, let alone its 2000 peak -- leaving a pool of labor on the sidelines
There have been bright interludes such as the late-’90s boom, but essentially the so-called labor share -- the chunk of American economic output that goes to workers in the form of wages and salaries -- has been in steady decline since the 1970s. Whatever the impact of Trump’s tax bill, expecting it to turn such long-term trends around would be a bold prediction.
“If you’re waiting for a 1970s-style breakout in wages or prices,’’ said Stanley, the Amherst Pierpont economist, “I don’t think you’re ever going to see it.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-12/where-s-mine-workers-wonder-if-trump-tax-cut-will-trickle-down