By way of:
This is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released June
5. It shows real wages, real hourly
compensation, for Nonfarm Business declined by 5.2% in the first quarter of
2013. The decline real hourly
compensation in manufacturing was
8.3%. This wipes out most of the gain
in wages for the past year. Average real
wages for Nonfarm Business increased by 0.3% for the past year.
PRODUCTIVITY AND COSTS
First Quarter 2013, Revised
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Table A. Revised first-quarter 2013 measures: percent change from previous quarter at annual rate
(Q to Q) and from same quarter a year ago (Y to Y)
Sector Nonfarm Durable Nondurable
Business Business Manufactu Manufactu Manufactu
QtoQ YtoY QtoQ YtoY QtoQ YtoY QtoQ YtoY QtoQ YtoY
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Productivity 0.5 0.9 2.0 1.2 3.5 1.6 3.5 2.7 3.9 0.5
Output 2.1 2.4 3.1 2.4 5.3 2.5 6.4 3.8 4.2 1.2
Hours 1.6 1.5 1.1 1.2 1.8 0.9 2.8 1.0 0.2 0.7
Hourly
compensation -3.8 2.0 -3.1 2.3 -6.9 4.5 -8.1 5.4 -4.9 2.7
Real hourly
compensation -5.2 0.3 -4.6 0.6 -8.3 2.8 -9.4 3.6 -6.4 1.0
Unit labor
costs -4.3 1.1 -5.0 1.1 -10.0 2.8 -11.2 2.6 -8.5 2.3
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Not going to have a recovery until you get money into the
hands of labor, which most businesses seem to be trying to prevent. Note the increase in productivity, year over
year three times the Y over Y increase in labor costs. Good news for the wealthy: More stuff, but not so much more competition
for buying it.
The National Memo does a nice discussion of increasing
inequality over the past few years, and fires a few deserved shots at the Main
Stream Media for ignoring this item.
Here's the long term story, in a couple of graphs: An index of the long term labor share of national income:
And a graph of the ratio of the real compensation per hour to output per hour, for non-farm labor.
This is labor getting less of what it is producing, and it has to go somewhere. Maybe a little old, but still important.