re: US workers are taking home less of what they produce than ever before

I have no idea except I would like to"content creator" added as there are billions of dollars flowing for that

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More like being paid out in dividends

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Which end up where?
i.e., Where does the money go?

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put into stock buybacks

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Where does the money go?

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First, help make sure there are good jobs and a strong economy. That means low taxes and less regulation.

Second, attempt to deal with the three big negatives killing young Americans and sucking their finances: education costs, healthcare costs, and housing costs.

Education: college tuition has been exploding at 3x the rate of inflation. Colleges have no skin in the game; they get paid whether the student defaults or not, from the student or the taxpayer. Make them have skin in the game and put them on the hook for student defaults to motivate them to take more responsibility with the money they’re throwing around. Promote and help grow a system of lower cost trade schools and apprenticeships.

Healthcare costs: the ACA is killing us. Insurance companies are feeding off the cash cow of government money taken from hard working taxpayers in the form of subsidies. They have zero motivation to help keep premiums low. Explore possibility of replacing it with a very base level of medical coverage for every American citizen then allow people to purchase additional supplemental insurance if they wish. Create a blue ribbon committee of smart, experienced people from across the healthcare spectrum to meet and study the goal of a better alternative to the ACA.

Home ownership: more young people are being priced out of the American Dream of owning their home. Dramatically increase the housing numbers through incentives that promote construction of new housing and renovations of existing housing to help lower costs. Create tax incentives to help people buy their first home. Push for lowering property taxes at grassroots level.

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Well thought out responses, but higher education and health care are boondoggles that would require the removal of federal funding to fix. Time for the fedgov to get out of student loans and healthcare.

As for home ownership, you are exactly right, it is a supply and demand issue. People are demanding housing they can't afford and refusing to live in neighborhoods they actually can afford. The only way to fix that is to heavily increase supply, and the best way to do that is through incentives.

Yes.
Dividends go into investor's pockets, as does the money used for stock buybacks.
That money, in turn, then disproportionately goes back into buying more stocks, bonds, and corporate ownership.

this is %labor costs vs GDP

1) track this vs labor participation rate. (hit this has also gone down)
2) automation has lowered the need for "labor"
3) AI will effect this even more

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BigJim

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thank you for posting. This is excellent additional context.

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What do we get in return?

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I have asked this (and shared this sentiment) for many years. I'm grateful for the security and infrastructure the "state" provides for me. But I do not feel i get near enough value for the amount of money I pay in taxes at any level. Especially at the local level.

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What is the counter to this?

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Same as every problem. Term limits. Eliminate the lobbying to campaign donation pipeline. Mandate that congressional stock trading is put into a trust for the 2 terms you’re allowed to serve. Put congress on Medicare and attach their salaries to a balanced budget.

shite will turn around quick.

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Same as every problem. Term limits.

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Make them have skin in the game and put them on the hook for student defaults to motivate them to take more responsibility with the money they’re throwing around.

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This will never happen because it's ridiculous. It's popular—somewhere someone is always typing this—but it's just as ridiculous as it was when the first person ever typed it.

40%—almost half—of people who start college (which means they take loans) drop out.

Colleges are going to be made legally responsible for these people? Dropping out? What are they supposed to do about that? How are they supposed to control it? Just let students who flunk stay in? Keep in mind that dropping out is even more likely in STEM fields.

What about a student who becomes addicted to alcohol or drugs and can't get or keep a job and defaults because of that? What are colleges supposed to do about that? Go find the guy and tie him down and force him to quit cold turkey?

What if some kid is just a Nick Fuentes type who simply has a personality that makes your skin crawl and he can't get a job because of that? What are colleges supposed to do about that? Deny him admission in the first place? So colleges who admit 10,000 freshmen every year are now going to have to hold interviews for every student, lest they let one slip through the cracks who might not be able to get a job when he or she graduates? What happens when they start college normal and become woke communist degenerate chuds by the time they graduate? Because that happens a lot. What are colleges supposed to do about that?

I don't know what the compulsion is to try to make colleges legally responsible for someone els's life and behavior.

Colleges do not guarantee a job—they can't. They guarantee that they will teach you what you sign up to learn. That's all they CAN guarantee you. Because they can't control your choices, your aptitude, your work ethic, and your intangibles that lead to success or failure.

It's asinine to propose this populist nonsense.

Colleges offer instruction. Students choose to go to college and choose what instruction they wish to receive and then they choose what they make of the rest of their lives.

There IS a solution. It's really fricking simple. If you think about it for 10 seconds I'll bet you can think of it.

Just stop involving the government in guaranteeing student loans. Stop advocating for MORE government—like a leftist—and start advocating for less.

Problem solved.

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the ACA is killing us. Insurance companies are feeding off the cash cow of government money taken from hard working taxpayers in the form of subsidies. They have zero motivation to help keep premiums low. Explore possibility of replacing it with a very base level of medical coverage for every American citizen then allow people to purchase additional supplemental insurance if they wish. Create a blue ribbon committee of smart, experienced people from across the healthcare spectrum to meet and study the goal of a better alternative to the ACA.

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Now THAT would cut costs down to the bone (sarcasm). That sort of "solution" would likely just transfer premiums to taxes (it has everywhere else it has been tried), be no cheaper, and objectively worse.

I don't have time to get into healthcare except to say that there really is no solution without giving something up. There's no such thing as, "Our system will stay the same in terms of quality and availability, it will just be cheaper." That's a fairy tale.

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Home ownership: more young people are being priced out of the American Dream of owning their home. Dramatically increase the housing numbers through incentives that promote construction of new housing and renovations of existing housing to help lower costs. Create tax incentives to help people buy their first home. Push for lowering property taxes at grassroots level.

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So again, just transferring one type of tax to another. Lower property tax, so the local government raises sales tax. Giving "incentives," so we just raise middle class income taxes while making contractors even more rich.

More government pretty much always makes these things worse, not better. Stop looking to increase it and start considering rolling it back.

Sorry if I got harsh at the beginning, I just see people post that nonsense everywhere I go and it confounds me as to how anybody can think #1 that it's even feasible, but #2 that people have been so conditioned in 2026 to populism that the popular thought is "Use the government to punish the colleges, yeah that's it!" rather than just stop guaranteeing the loans with taxpayer money.

It's damn depressing is what it is.