AyashiKaibutsu
Diamond Member
- Jan 24, 2004
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StageLeft
No Lifer
- Sep 29, 2000
- 70,150
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Costs for them may be racing back faster than you can tailor them down, though. That's why an adjusted graph would be interesting.
Middle class I think is doing slightly better and so is lower than, say, 20 years ago, but I am fairly sure the upper is doing more than slightly better and their piece of the pie is indeed increasing. And quite quickly. I heard (I think) that last year the average CEO saw a 15% raise or somthing like that, just another anecdotal stat.
America is sick. It has a powerful party of death and hate that cannibalizes it's own children. God is used to make you feel worthless and undeserving and to treat others as you feel about yourself.
We have created a society where you have to have a good job to survive and be successful and then we have destroyed those jobs, destroyed the schools needed to attain them, destroyed the social structure that supports the mentality needed for success, destroyed our organic happiness.
If you need a job to live, then a job is your human right and any government that does not provide those jobs should be abolished and new government instituted that affects your safety and happiness.
We have created a society where you have to have a good job to survive and be successful and then we have destroyed those jobs, destroyed the schools needed to attain them, destroyed the social structure that supports the mentality needed for success, destroyed our organic happiness.
If you need a job to live, then a job is your human right and any government that does not provide those jobs should be abolished and new government instituted that affects your safety and happiness.
No, I don't have numbers crunched data. There are many articles by economists on the discrepancy, however, and the increase in healthcare costs is cited as one. There are other theories, some of them technical. I can tell you that nowhere close to 55% of the workforce is without healthcare benefits, though. That much I know.
- wolf
I used the word "may" in setting up a hypothetical to explain the point.
Anyway, there isn't a mono-causal reason for this discrepancy. Here is an NYT article in 2006 discussing the issue:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/business/28wages.html
- wolf
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zephyrprime
Diamond Member
- Feb 18, 2001
- 7,512
- 2
- 81
It's because of offshoring and more money going to the rich. Offshoring creates deflation and then banks are free to create inflation to compensate and the benefits of that money creation goes mostly to the rich.
Thump553
Lifer
- Jun 2, 2000
- 12,836
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- 136
Boy I'd love to see some solid factual support for that theory. Admittedly health insurance costs have been accelerating for years (both before and after the divergence in the chart), but if anything I would conjecture the cost of the rest of the benefits have decreased. Pensions are the other big segment of fringe benefit costs, and conventional pensions have essentially been eliminated for US workers over the last decade or two (outside of government or union covered jobs).
The short answer is competition has driven wages down-driven by increased globalization, out-sourcing and (to some extent) illegal immigration.
Hey CEO's and upper management get healthcare too, and every other benefit the line worker does, so you'd think their increased salaries would be offset somewhat by this as well -err not so much.
I know we're talking straight productivity vs. wages, but the income disparity is a more apt comparison, wages would be stagnant for CEO's as well if it were just due to healthcare/benefits.
I know we're talking straight productivity vs. wages, but the income disparity is a more apt comparison, wages would be stagnant for CEO's as well if it were just due to healthcare/benefits.
Jaskalas
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2004
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nobodyknows
Diamond Member
- Sep 28, 2008
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If you look at charts like this one:
Up until about 20 years ago wages were pretty much in line with productivity and increased each year , then all of a sudden wages stopped increasing yet business was able to produce more and prices for goods increased. Basically business benefited while the workers got shafted. I think that has to do with the economic problems more than anything else. People had to borrow to buy the same things they had before because wages lost pace with cost.
So what caused it to occur ? I heard some people say it was computers and automation that allowed factories to turn out more and need less skilled workers so there was no need to increase wages . The problem with that is in some countries they have kept the wages increasing over the years even though they have modernized the factories and production. So what is it we are not doing ?
Rayguns' reforms, what else?
Timeline tells it all. 
werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
- 29,873
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There are a variety of reasons. As Wolf and Vic pointed out, benefits have gotten much more expensive. Also, other mandatory costs such as unemployment and liability insurance have gone up, even though most employees don't see or think about them. These things increase the cost of employing someone faster than that person's actual pay increases.
As others pointed out, more than half of our manufacturing has been outsourced. This increases the profit (which goes disproportionally to the resource owners, since retail prices are set by the market which responds more slowly to drops in costs of production) but requires many fewer American employees. These displaced employees then compete for the remaining jobs. Increased labor pool decreases wages, simple supply and demand. These remaining jobs are also much more likely to be service sector jobs, which average less than manufacturing jobs.
Illegal and legal immigration both increased, again increasing the labor pool and thus decreasing wages. This is especially true for illegal immigration as illegals are more willing to take lower wages both because of their desperate circumstances and because they can often dodge some costs legal workers pay.
Our appetite for material things has only increased, but our economy has largely moved to a service-based economy. Thus our increased productivity actually generates less real wealth, so there is less real wealth to pay the wages for the whole economy.
Unions were driving much of the wage growth in the twentieth century, but many of the unionized companies went bust due to noncompetitive wages and strikes. The companies replacing these failed enterprises tend to be non-union and/or offshore.
As others pointed out, more than half of our manufacturing has been outsourced. This increases the profit (which goes disproportionally to the resource owners, since retail prices are set by the market which responds more slowly to drops in costs of production) but requires many fewer American employees. These displaced employees then compete for the remaining jobs. Increased labor pool decreases wages, simple supply and demand. These remaining jobs are also much more likely to be service sector jobs, which average less than manufacturing jobs.
Illegal and legal immigration both increased, again increasing the labor pool and thus decreasing wages. This is especially true for illegal immigration as illegals are more willing to take lower wages both because of their desperate circumstances and because they can often dodge some costs legal workers pay.
Our appetite for material things has only increased, but our economy has largely moved to a service-based economy. Thus our increased productivity actually generates less real wealth, so there is less real wealth to pay the wages for the whole economy.
Unions were driving much of the wage growth in the twentieth century, but many of the unionized companies went bust due to noncompetitive wages and strikes. The companies replacing these failed enterprises tend to be non-union and/or offshore.
GuitarDaddy
Lifer
- Nov 9, 2004
- 11,465
- 1
- 0
Quite something to see the very things I warned about were going to happen and they happened and now everyone scratching their asses wondering how did it happen?
There are several theories proferred by economists for the discrepancy between wages and productivity, including outsourcing, weaker unions, higher benefit costs, etc. Probably all are factors. However, it is next to impossible to quantify the contribution of each.
The reason I cite this factor in particular is because I think the theory that it is a contributing factor is solid. We know that healthcare premium costs have about doubled in the past 10 years. That is a known, quanifiable statistic. Its rate of growth is about inflation + 7 yearly. Hence, employers now pay more in real, inflation adjusted dollars, for the same health coverage they paid for 10 years ago.
When something like that occurs, there are a few possible effects: 1) the costs are taken out of employee wages, probably through the mechanism of not increasing them, or increasing them at a slower rate over time, 2) the employer hires fewer new workers, 3) other benefits are trimmed or dropped, or 4) health coverage gets dropped.
Since #4 has not happened much YET (though it will definitely happen more so in the coming decade if the trend continues), it must be some combination of the other three. One is a depression of real wages, another a depression of real benefits, and the third a negative impact on employment.
Incidentally, the outsourcing of jobs, i.e. shipping them overseas, is also connected to rising healthcare costs here in the U.S. That much should be obvious.
- wolf
By all means, pay no attention to facts or rational arguments. Dismiss me instead. That'll further our understanding.
Agreed, and I agree that rising health care costs are almost as bad for businesses as for individuals. However you can't deny that 30k a year jobs are weak on benefits in general, and therefore explaining away wage stagnation with such a broad brush fails to pass muster.
You're right, except I'm not using a broad brush. I've said a couple times that there are undoubtedly multiple causes for the wage stagnation.
- wolf
It's true you've moved on since we started, I was still responding only to our original exchange in which benefits was the only focus.
I apologize, Skoorb, for the mis-attribution. Sometimes I get the quote function wrong- mea culpa. I'll see if I can correct it now.
That's just a side-effect. American capitalists engage in offshoring because it benefits them, as is obvious from the changed income distribution in this country. They sure as hell didn't share their own prosperity on purpose, just that of Joe and Joan Sixpack...
ebaycj
Diamond Member
- Mar 9, 2002
- 5,418
- 0
- 0
I'd prefer per-transaction commissions to the engineers who design and run systems for their company. $0.002 - $0.005 per transaction sounds OK to me.
200 signs printed * 1,000 stores * 52 weeks/year * $0.002 =$20,800 per year for the first one/two/three years, as long as the individual still works for the company.
Salesmen get mad commissions and all they do is look pretty, sweet talk, and shmooze. How about the poor shlub's that actually CREATE the shit that they sell ?
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Ozoned
Diamond Member
- Mar 22, 2004
- 5,578
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