Started By
Message

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

Posted on 1/13/26 at 9:31 am to
Posted by wdhalgren
Member since May 2013
5294 posts
Posted on 1/13/26 at 9:31 am to
This chart is an illustration of what inflation does to the working class. Wages never keep up with inflation. Wages go up and up, and the wage earners get poorer and poorer because prices rise faster. Eventually you get stagflation as real consumption declines, and then hyperinflation when people start to abandon the currency in favor of other assets.

Remember all that risk that nearly blew up the banking system back in 2008? It never went away, just got transformed and transferred. Borrowers and lenders were bailed out, speculators were rewarded, savers were punished. Those are perverse incentives that lead to more risk, not less.
Posted by NC_Tigah
Make Orwell Fiction Again
Member since Sep 2003
138899 posts
Posted on 1/13/26 at 2:28 pm to
quote:

This chart is an illustration of what inflation does to the working class.
At least portions of the chart are illustrative.

There are other factors at play, but the 3 decades between 1960&1990 show increasing LFPR with slightly declining labor share of US GDP.

Two points where those trends really stand out are Stagflation of the mid-late 1970's, and the recent Bidenflation period.


This post was edited on 1/13/26 at 2:31 pm
Posted by wackatimesthree
Member since Oct 2019
13466 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 9:40 am to
quote:

This chart is an illustration of what inflation does to the working class. Wages never keep up with inflation. Wages go up and up, and the wage earners get poorer and poorer because prices rise faster.


How do you figure?

That chart is not about wages. Unless I am not understanding something, that chart says nothing about people earning lower wages or "getting poorer." You don't have that information at all in that chart.

I start a lemonade stand. At first we do all the work by hand. Squeezing the lemons, building the stand, passing out flyers (hand drawn) to the neighborhood for marketing, etc. Under that model I need 10 employees who each earn a dollar an hour.

If you want to talk about inflation, o.k., inflation is at 3% for the year, so next year I'll need to pay them a buck and 3 cents to equal their salary for this year.

Let's say that first year our profit margin was 5%.

As money starts to come in and the company decides to expand, we take out a loan so that we can lease some equipment. Now we just drop some lemons and some sugar and water into the machine and it makes the lemonade. Now we outsource our marketing to a marketing company. We order a bigger, pre-fab stand from ACME Lemonade Supply.

Now I still need 10 employees to keep up with packing and deliveries, and we lost too many employees from last year to paper routes and selling Girl Scout cookies, so this year I give everyone a raise to $2 an hour. Doubled salaries.

This year, even with the additional expenses, volume is enough that our profit margin is 12%.

That's a simple example in which wages more than kept up with inflation and increased dramatically, but would still show up on that chart as "workers producing more, but taking home less of what they produced."

It's a bullshite metric that tells you almost nothing. Like I posted above, it definitely doesn't show you that people are making less money. They might be, but you can't tell it from that chart.



Posted by winkchance
St. George, LA
Member since Jul 2016
6653 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 9:52 am to
More healthcare and free school for illegals will solve the problem.
Posted by dgnx6
Member since Feb 2006
89779 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 9:53 am to
Minimum wage and flooding the country with illegals.



Im going to compare this to if I have 2 children vs 10 children.


If I have 2 children, they get a big piece of the pie. If I have 10, they will get smaller pieces of the pie.


And in the case of the US businesses, their children include places like China. US workers aren't even making these products some of these companies are selling so part of that pie is going to their children in China, or Vietnam, or Mexico. The list goes on.
This post was edited on 1/14/26 at 9:56 am
Posted by wackatimesthree
Member since Oct 2019
13466 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 10:08 am to
quote:

Minimum wage and flooding the country with illegals.

Im going to compare this to if I have 2 children vs 10 children.

If I have 2 children, they get a big piece of the pie. If I have 10, they will get smaller pieces of the pie.


Again I am confused by this analysis. Again, unless I am misunderstanding something, the chart doesn't show the gap between individual workers and GDP, it show the gap between ALL workers and GDP.

So the "piece of the pie" is the same size whether you have 2 children or 10.

Each child may only get 1 bite if there are 10 of them vs 5 bites each of there are two of them, but that chart doesn't give any information on that.

One other thing to point out is that the concept of the economy as a finite, fixed pie, where if one person gets more than necessarily means someone else is getting less, is completely flawed. The economy doesn't work that way. When someone gets more, that doesn't necessarily mean someone else is getting less. The "pie" can expand.

Maybe that's what's confusing everyone and fooling them into thinking that that chart says something about wages going down. As far as I can tell, it doesn't.
Posted by dgnx6
Member since Feb 2006
89779 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 10:10 am to
quote:

We don't have a revenue problem we have a spending problem. Trump not returning to pre covid spending levels is insane and not helping as well as continuing the Biden 2 Trillion + per year deficit spending.



It actually doesn't matter what he does because you will still call him Hitler.


No one called Bill Hitler when he tried to cut government workforce.


If he cured cancer a democrat judge would block it.

Posted by wackatimesthree
Member since Oct 2019
13466 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 10:17 am to
quote:

Trump not returning to pre covid spending levels is insane


It is, but Biden didn't return to pre-COVID spending levels for four years before Trump got a chance to continue to increase spending.

That doesn't absolve Trump, but it does mean that those spending levels had 4 years to become the "new normal." Which means Trump would have had to have overcome that much more inertia to roll it back.

Not that he's interested in doing so. He's clearly completely unconcerned with spending, like all of them.
Posted by dgnx6
Member since Feb 2006
89779 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 10:19 am to
quote:

One other thing to point out is that the concept of the economy as a finite, fixed pie, where if one person gets more than necessarily means someone else is getting less, is completely flawed.



As our economy has grown so has the population. It's not growing with population staying stagnant.


If your economy stays stagnant and your population grows, less money to go around.



Economies aren't always growing; that's the fallacy you are making.



And again, if company X makes this much and half the workforce are Americans and the other half is outsourced, then Americans aren't getting all of that pie.




Its there in the Op


quote:

US labor now reflects 53.8% of US GDP, the lowest since data began in 1947.




This isn't the only reason, but to say it's not happening is wrong.



quote:

If a U.S. company:

used to employ 100% American workers, and

now outsources 50% of the work overseas,

then:

the goods/services still count toward U.S. GDP (because the company is U.S.-based and sells the output), but

wages paid to foreign workers do NOT count as U.S. labor income






Here is another reason.


quote:

Because the share of what they produce is less due to automation…in the aggregate.



The point is these companies are producing more with less US workers. That's a fact.

This post was edited on 1/14/26 at 10:25 am
Posted by AUCom96
Alabama
Member since May 2020
7011 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 10:19 am to
Money is the only thing that matters in this country... and now it's failing because of it.
Posted by Willie Stroker
Member since Sep 2008
16649 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 10:22 am to
quote:

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

Because the share of what they produce is less due to automation…in the aggregate.

There is still high value human labor jobs. People in those jobs take home a larger share of what they produce.
Posted by wackatimesthree
Member since Oct 2019
13466 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 3:21 pm to
quote:

As our economy has grown so has the population. It's not growing with population staying stagnant.


No, but it is growing at a higher rate than population.

From AI:
quote:

Historically, population growth around 1% annually was often accompanied by real GDP growth of about 3% annually, with two-thirds of that GDP growth attributed to factors beyond just more people (like skills, capital, technology).


quote:

If your economy stays stagnant and your population grows, less money to go around.


But that hasn't happened. We've kept pace with the average historical rate of economic growth for the past 10 years (albeit with a dip during COVID).

quote:

Economies aren't always growing; that's the fallacy you are making.


No, I didn't make that fallacy because I never made that claim. I said they could expand, not that they had to. Which ours has.

quote:

And again, if company X makes this much and half the workforce are Americans and the other half is outsourced, then Americans aren't getting all of that pie.


Yeah. I said that.

But even that is only true for one company. If the American workers who would otherwise have been working for that company weren't able to instead work for some other American company, we would have seen huge rates of unemployment. We haven't seen that. American workers are still working. AND the companies are outsourcing.

Did you read my lemonade stand example? Same number of workers, wages doubled, company outsourced marketing and technology eliminated the production jobs, but the company grew (the pie got bigger) to the point that it would have still shown up on that chart as "workers taking home less of what they produced." Everybody won. The workers, the marketing company that we outsourced to, the tech companies we bought the machinery from, our customers, and me as the owner. Every single payer in that game won, yet it still would have shown up as a negative on that chart.

That's why it's a bullshite metric design to manipulate...well, really populists. That's clearly the target audience.

quote:

Its there in the Op


quote:
US labor now reflects 53.8% of US GDP, the lowest since data began in 1947.


You're giving every indication of still not understanding what that does or does not mean.

quote:

The point is these companies are producing more with less US workers. That's a fact.


Again, that's not what the chart necessarily means. It's not a fact. Please familiarize yourself with the lemonade stand example. Same. Number. Of. Employees. Even though we outsourced and tech replaced some specific jobs. The company got more efficient and grew. That's what happened.

If you're going to insist on not understanding that, then where is the corresponding unemployment that would have to be the case under your analysis? Except for COVID, it's been going down since 2009.


Posted by PurpleCrush
ATL
Member since May 2014
2430 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 3:33 pm to
You get all the newest military equipment, big gov contracts, and you can write off the plane you use for biz too, You didn't feel the tax relief from BBB?
Posted by BBONDS25
Member since Mar 2008
59466 posts
Posted on 1/14/26 at 3:35 pm to
quote:

You get all the newest military equipment, big gov contracts, and you can write off the plane you use for biz too, You didn't feel the tax relief from BBB?


Everyone with an income felt relief from that bill. More is needed. But that bill did provide relief.
This post was edited on 1/14/26 at 3:36 pm
first pageprev pagePage 3 of 3Next pagelast page
refresh

Back to top
logoFollow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News
Follow us on X, Facebook and Instagram to get the latest updates on LSU Football and Recruiting.

FacebookXInstagram