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But choose 2019 or 2021 as the base and wages have kept pace with or exceeded inflation:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/has-pay-kept-up-with-infl...



This rise since 2021 can be easily seen in the graph in the article I posted also, but the catch is that the increases have been relatively flat where they can been found, and that increase followed a lowering in real wages. Whichever way the data is looked at since 2020, it isn't very reassuring to the general public that wages have essentially stayed flat with inflation, when US productivity growth has been going up. I was actually surprised about the article I referenced in the comment above. The figure I'd read of previously was that real wages had cumulatively increased around 2% since 2020, which the Brookings article seems to reference. 2% real increases in wages is strikingly low considering US productivity growth. It was the figure I was originally looking up.


If you only want to see what you want to see, it's easy to find evidence. On the other hand, look at the commonly posted wages vs productivity graphs (productivity goes up pretty much unbroken, but wages flatline since roughly mid-70s), or compare the 'US is #1!!' GDP per capita numbers against the *median* income numbers. Bit of a difference when you remove Musk, Gates, Bezos et al income from the comparison.


Why would you expect wages to track productivity in an environment where automation increasingly drives productivity gains and the means of automation are provided by employers?




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