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"In the past ~50 years in the US, labor has been on the back foot, and productivity gains have gone almost exclusively to the wealthy, rather than the working c
by partiallypro 7y ago
"In the past ~50 years in the US, labor has been on the back foot, and productivity gains have gone almost exclusively to the wealthy, rather than the working class. "
How so? The poorest working people in the US today are much much much better off than they were 50 years ago. It's not even close. A lot of people have recency bias, technology gains etc have given much more freedom to individuals, made work easier and less labor intensive, that is largely due to private industry. Globally, poverty has plunged.
- monocasa 7y agoWhat stats are you looking at? Real wages have been stagnant for the vast majority of workers in the US. And the "pulled people out of poverty" thing is such a BS stat. Converting subsistence farmers into sweat shop workers so that they they have $1.50/day instead of $0/day isn't a real metric of pulling people out of poverty. It's more a metric of how tied into the global system they are.
- aeternum 7y agoAccording to this real wages have been rising for the last 30 years: https://www.factcheck.org/2019/06/are-wages-rising-or-flat/ https://www.factcheck.org/2019/06/are-wages-rising-or-flat/
- monocasa 7y agoAverage has, median has not. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...
- refurb 7y agoYour ignoring total compensation as wages are only one part of it. Total compensation at all income levels has vastly outstripped inflation over the past 50 years.
- monocasa 7y ago[citation needed] Median is $60k household. People making $30k each aren't having side perks thrown at them.
- aeternum 7y agoThe FRED seems to disagree: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
- partiallypro 7y ago$1.50/day has much more purchasing power in poorer countries. Any time someone makes such a statement, I can immediately tell they are ignorant on basic economics. The US also used to have low wages for entry level workers, as did every (no developed) country. That's how progress is made. You can't expect a poor farmer with minimal skills to start making $25 an hour. And what stats am I looking at? What stats are YOU looking at? Even if you believe the notion that real wages are flat (not true,) living standards have still risen drastically thanks to technology. Do you think technology gains just come out of thin air? No, they are driven by competition and the need to profit.