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That's true, but keep in mind, the peak year for unionization in the USA was 1949, the Communist hysteria of 1947-1954 forced the labor unions to purge their mi
by lkrubner 5y ago
That's true, but keep in mind, the peak year for unionization in the USA was 1949, the Communist hysteria of 1947-1954 forced the labor unions to purge their militants, and afterwards the unions were in slow decline. And the divergence of wages versus productivity occurs in the 1970s. In other words, Reagan did not start anything, but rather, he was the final nail in the coffin of trends that had started much earlier.
- whodidntante 5y agoThere was no disconnect between productivity and compensation due to the "slow decline of unions" from 1954 to 1972 The US went off the gold standard in mid 1971, and the productivity/comp divergence starting happening in 1972. A lot of changes to the economy can be traced to 1972. https://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-divergence-between-productivity-and-a-typical-workers-pay-why-it-matters-and-why-its-real/ https://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-d...
- lkrubner 5y agoDepending on what you consider decisive you can use 1949, 1958, or 1973 as the decisive turning point. The double recession of 1958-1960 was certainly decisive if we're looking at labor's political power. It was after that, for the first time in 70 years, that the USA began to develop a trade deficit. Please look at first chart on this page: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/a-new-look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states# https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-gr... You can see that labor begins to weaken after 1960.
- RobertoG 5y agoThe OPEC crisis and expensive oil is not a small factor, probably.