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Speaking of abuse of statistics, lumping the bottom 20-40% with the top 60-80% of wage earners is extremely deceptive. It's well known that income growth is wil

Speaking of abuse of statistics, lumping the bottom 20-40% with the top 60-80% of wage earners is extremely deceptive. It's well known that income growth is wildly different for those groups. Inflation adjusted wages for the median worker only increased by 9% from 1973 to 2014.

stanfordkid 6y ago
True. But how much did the productive output of the average American increase? Can we really expect things to "always increase" -- including wages? To me this seems like an absurd idea. The end goal should be improving the median quality of life, through improving the efficiency of factors of production -- lower cost of goods... not through the expectation that the wages should arbitrarily grow linearly with GDP.
- toiletfuneral 6y ago
  increasing efficiency isn't going to help wildfires in Australia, reduce the amount of plastic in the pacific or save any glaciers but wow, congrats on getting shoes for $11 instead of $16
- owenmarshall 6y ago
  > But how much did the productive output of the average American increase? Around one hundred percent. https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm
  - Aunche 6y ago
    They probably meant median productive output. Sam Walton and Bezos made their supply chains 100% more efficient. It’s not as if warehouse workers suddenly were able to lift 100% more weight.
    - taurath 6y ago
      Standardized pallets and forklifts can make them lift a hell of a lot more weight
      - Aunche 6y ago
        The people who load pallets are moving just as many boxes as they used to. Sure they play a part in the productivity, but I don't see how it's unfair if they make the same amount for the same work.
        taurath 6y ago
        Where do crane operators stand in this? Where does the productivity come from?
    - owenmarshall 6y ago
      100% more weight per lift I'd agree. But that's hardly relevant. 100% more weight per hour, thanks to algorithmic placement of boxes, computerized dispatch and routing and general ruthless process optimization? I'd be shocked if we didn't end up at 100%. But it's not just warehouses: efficiency changes have been top to bottom throughout the world. Things like Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, the Toyota Production System ... these have been massive drivers of efficiency nearly everywhere. I worked manufacturing IT and was able to watch the assembly process. It's frankly amazing and us programmers have lots to learn. The worker that bolts widget A to widget B doesn't just have a box of bolts and a wrench. She pre-places the bolts in a pokayoke tray and places test templates against A and B. Are they misdrilled? Push a button on her console and they are diverted off the line for rework. Good? Templates off, place the assemblies in a work tray that can hold them in exactly one - the correct - configuration, pokayoke tray goes on and nuts screwed to bolts. The count of nuts and bolts in her station are measured based on flow in/flow out and a runner brings and places more just in time to prevent her station from running out but not before they accumulate at her station. The environment and process is designed to absolutely minimize operator motion, with a supervisor monitoring and filling out time observation sheets to look for wasted effort and opportunities to change. When I talked with some plant supervisors it was incredible: they were able to point to a manufacturing station and say "this worker takes twelve seconds to execute these five motions", and you could pull out a stopwatch and that was exactly what you would see.
- economicslol 6y ago
  It was true for decades before the mid 70s when productivity and wages decoupled. The reason why isn't clear but there was certainly the expectation that wages would increase for half a century in the US. https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
  - stanfordkid 6y ago
    I think private equity has a large role to play in this. It's sad to me that people point the finger at innovative companies like Amazon, when the real culprits are people who just finance and gut medium size companies you've never heard of in order to eat up the margin that was previously going to workers and extract it for themselves and their LPs.

stanfordkid 6y ago

True. But how much did the productive output of the average American increase? Can we really expect things to "always increase" -- including wages? To me this seems like an absurd idea. The end goal should be improving the median quality of life, through improving the efficiency of factors of production -- lower cost of goods... not through the expectation that the wages should arbitrarily grow linearly with GDP.

toiletfuneral 6y ago
increasing efficiency isn't going to help wildfires in Australia, reduce the amount of plastic in the pacific or save any glaciers but wow, congrats on getting shoes for $11 instead of $16
owenmarshall 6y ago
> But how much did the productive output of the average American increase? Around one hundred percent. https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm
- Aunche 6y ago
  They probably meant median productive output. Sam Walton and Bezos made their supply chains 100% more efficient. It’s not as if warehouse workers suddenly were able to lift 100% more weight.
  - taurath 6y ago
    Standardized pallets and forklifts can make them lift a hell of a lot more weight
    - Aunche 6y ago
      The people who load pallets are moving just as many boxes as they used to. Sure they play a part in the productivity, but I don't see how it's unfair if they make the same amount for the same work.
      - taurath 6y ago
        Where do crane operators stand in this? Where does the productivity come from?
  - owenmarshall 6y ago
    100% more weight per lift I'd agree. But that's hardly relevant. 100% more weight per hour, thanks to algorithmic placement of boxes, computerized dispatch and routing and general ruthless process optimization? I'd be shocked if we didn't end up at 100%. But it's not just warehouses: efficiency changes have been top to bottom throughout the world. Things like Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, the Toyota Production System ... these have been massive drivers of efficiency nearly everywhere. I worked manufacturing IT and was able to watch the assembly process. It's frankly amazing and us programmers have lots to learn. The worker that bolts widget A to widget B doesn't just have a box of bolts and a wrench. She pre-places the bolts in a pokayoke tray and places test templates against A and B. Are they misdrilled? Push a button on her console and they are diverted off the line for rework. Good? Templates off, place the assemblies in a work tray that can hold them in exactly one - the correct - configuration, pokayoke tray goes on and nuts screwed to bolts. The count of nuts and bolts in her station are measured based on flow in/flow out and a runner brings and places more just in time to prevent her station from running out but not before they accumulate at her station. The environment and process is designed to absolutely minimize operator motion, with a supervisor monitoring and filling out time observation sheets to look for wasted effort and opportunities to change. When I talked with some plant supervisors it was incredible: they were able to point to a manufacturing station and say "this worker takes twelve seconds to execute these five motions", and you could pull out a stopwatch and that was exactly what you would see.
economicslol 6y ago
It was true for decades before the mid 70s when productivity and wages decoupled. The reason why isn't clear but there was certainly the expectation that wages would increase for half a century in the US. https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
- stanfordkid 6y ago
  I think private equity has a large role to play in this. It's sad to me that people point the finger at innovative companies like Amazon, when the real culprits are people who just finance and gut medium size companies you've never heard of in order to eat up the margin that was previously going to workers and extract it for themselves and their LPs.