Must-Read: Nick Bunker: Compensation Inequality and Productivity Growth

Must-Read: The “but compensation growth has been faster than wage growth since 1975!” literature has always seemed to me to a bit like introducing a game of Three-Card-Monte to the inequality debate: I see every reason to think that the increases in benefits that are the wedge between compensation and income growth went overwhelmingly to those near the top of the income distribution…

Nick Bunker: Compensation Inequality and Productivity Growth: “Growth in total compensation for lower-paid workers was slower…

…than wage growth in that same spot on the wage spectrum. The exact opposite happens for highly-compensation workers…. Compensation inequality grew more than wage inequality did between 2007 and 2014…. There’s evidence that compensation inequality has grown faster than wage inequality since the 1980s as well…. [Robert] Lawrence finds… a break between productivity and average labor compensation around 2000… labor as a whole [since 2000] is receiving a declining share of income…. It may have been that compensation for labor as a whole tracked productivity until 2000, but… [was] productivity growth was translating into…[skewed] living standards for… workers[?]

July 27, 2015

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