Haiku Politics

The New York Times business section yesterday ran a story about the ever decreasing share of the economic pie that workers in the US (and elsewhere in the capitalist world) are getting. According to the article,

Job growth is starting to slow, and wages are barely keeping up with inflation. Five years into a relatively robust economic expansion, it’s understandable that many American workers feel that they are not getting their fair share of the pie.

In fact, the share of the economy devoted to workers' wages and benefits has eroded in the United States over the last five years.

The Times points out that the percentage of the economy that is paid out in wages "is perhaps the broadest measure of the workers' share of economic growth." And in the last five years, this percentage in the U.S. has dropped 2.5 percent. But here's the kicker. According to the article, "The recent declines are hardly atypical. While there have been some periods when the workers' share has risen, the overall trend since the 1970’s has been downward in most industrialized countries." In otherwards, for the past three decades, workers' have been getting less and less of the economic pie!

And why is this happening?

Economists have identified some important forces causing this erosion, but they are mostly perplexed by the long decline. "It’s a bit of a mystery why the labor share is falling so much," said Alan B. Krueger, a professor of economics at Princeton.

So, as the rich continue to get richer in today's capitalist economy, the rest of us are having to make due with less. What lesson can we draw from this about the capitalist system?

Posted by The Haikuist on Monday, October 16, 2006 at 12:58 PM | Permalink