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…
: 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[?]