Workers' share of America's pie is shrinking

[Omaha Steve]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100222/cm_csm/280908

By David R. Francis David R. Francis – Mon Feb 22, 6:12 pm ET

American labor isn't getting its full share of the nation's output.

Indeed, its share is at a "record low," says Charles McMillion, chief economist at MBG Information Services, a Washington consulting firm. "Labor has no leverage." So wages have been "depressed, stagnant, or falling" for some 30 years.

Much of that lost compensation went to business and its owners. Last year, for example, businesses raised workers' hourly pay a little (2.2 percent) but cut their hours a lot (5.1 percent). The result? The remaining workforce became considerably more productive, creating more goods and services per hour worked.

Ideally, business and labor would share about equally in productivity gains. Over the past three decades, though, business has reaped the bigger share. For every dollar of goods and services the United States produced in 1974, all employees reaped about 59 cents. Last year, their share had fallen to 55 cents. In a $14 trillion economy, that amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars in lost wages every year.

One reason for that grim slide is the globalization of the American economy. Mr. McMillion estimates 1 billion people in the world are unemployed or grossly underemployed and thus willing to work for tiny wages in comparison with those paid to most Americans.

Another reason is the perpetual war against trade unions by much of business and many antiunion politicians of both parties. For example, Republicans on the House Committee on Education and Labor routinely dispatch an e-mail to the press attacking the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) or some White House appointment, such as a nominee to the National Labor Relations Board.

EFCA was the top priority of organized labor, which had high hopes for labor-law reform when President Obama took office a year ago. But "it's not going to go anywhere soon" in Congress, notes John Schmitt, an economist at the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. With solid Republican opposition and a few Democratic no votes, the bill could not reach the 60 votes needed to escape a Senate filibuster.

FULL story at link.

[Hannah Bell]

1. i wish you'd post this in gd.

[maddezmom]

2. this is in GD

:hi:

[Hannah Bell]

4. whoops!

[City Lights]

3. K&R

[amborin]

5. becoming a permanent underclass:

"Make no mistake - this trend was in place even before the financial crisis struck. In 1972 the CPI adjusted wages for the average worker was $738.48 per week. In January 2008 that figure was $598.18.
Simply put, the average American worker has been getting poorer for a long time. What's more, the past decade was the worst in 70 years, and we are looking at a permanent underclass of former workers...."


"The war against working people should be understood to be a real war…. Specifically in the U.S., which happens to have a highly class-conscious business class…. And they have long seen themselves as fighting a bitter class war, except they don’t want anybody else to know about it.”
— Noam Chomsky

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/war-middle-class

[Echo In Light]

6. Auh yes, more of those CRAZY left wing CONSPIRACIES!

;)

[WCGreen]

7. and that is a lot less money percolating through the economy....

People who work for a living actually buy stuff from stores....

[Coventina]

8. Make the pie higher!!!

Sorry!

:hide:

[amborin]

9. $6.3 billion == one yr's compensation for 200 CEOs

http://projects.nytimes.com/executive_compensation?ref=business

[shintao]

10. The hunk of profit

One area the article doesn't address is the massive amounts shaved off to boardmembers, CEOs & stockholders. The stock market should be illegal, and viewed as the ponzi scheme it is. The profits to feed the stock-parasites comes off the sweat of the workers back, and takes the wages & benefits he should be getting. Thus employees are the ones to suffer.

The profits off workers does not stimulate the economy, and does not create more jobs, or lower the price on consumer goods. If you are going to have stocks and skin workers wages and benefits, at least go do it in a foreign stock market, and shut this US ponzi scheme down.