[lbo-talk] The Wageless, Profitable Recovery (NYT blogs)

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Jun 30 14:55:57 PDT 2011


On Jun 30, 2011, at 2:03 PM, Michael Pollak quoted:


> Economists at Northeastern University have found that the current
> economic recovery in the United States has been unusually skewed in
> favor of corporate profits and against increased wages for workers.

Hmm. Does everyone at the NYT crib from me?

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/DamnMess.html

[November 2010]

First up, the taxonomy of the recovery, such as it is, so far. The graph above plots the growth in total wages and salaries against the growth in corporate profits for the first year of the last eleven recoveries. Profits are always more volatile than wages—they fall more sharply in recessions and recover more vigorously. But we've never seen anything like this one before. The average ratio of profit to wage and salary growth for the previous ten recoveries is three-to-one; the latest is fifty-to-one. At 0.9%, wage and salary growth is barely visible on the graph—but profit growth is at the high end of historical experience.

[graph accompanies]



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