The situation on the ground is unchanged - the amount of labor being generated per person has not really changed, but the overall pie has grown massively around us.

"Is this decline a distinct change from the recent behavior of the labor share in the U.S.? Along the two key dimensions we investigate, our answer is no. <later> ... and they provide little evidence that it will evolve differently from past episodes."

This conclusion seems to be against "this time is different" arguments. Should we be generally encouraged by similarity to past declines pre-2000 or bearish and think that there is more drop to come like the 2000-2007 and 2007-2019 periods they graph out?

I guess there is no way to predict other than check back in after time passes.

> Is this decline a distinct change from the recent behavior of the labor share in the U.S.? Along the two key dimensions we investigate, our answer is no. First, the labor share’s trajectory post-COVID broadly follows the cyclical patterns observed in earlier recessions, with a decline during the recovery phase that mirrors historical dynamics. Second, the decline in the labor share since COVID is driven primarily by within-industry changes rather than shifts in economic activity across sectors. Taken together, these results suggest that the post-COVID decline follows the same cyclical patterns as earlier recessions and is driven by the same within-industry forces, and they provide little evidence that it will evolve differently from past episodes.

What I find more interesting is the sharp drop around the early 2000s

the capital/labor class gap increases when total returns on capital investment exceed total wages+redistribution to the labor class, and the gap shrinks when that's reversed. the market ~controls the capital gains and labor wages knobs, and society decides where to set the redistribution knob.

the article investigating the post-covid drop and concluding that it's normal is an interesting rhetorical device. on one hand, relief that nothing crazy is happening. on the other hand, disappointment that we've accepted a growing inequality gap as normal. the gap was already at a post-war max going into covid, the floor gave out 20 years earlier and covid was just gas on the fire.

advancements in automation and tax codes that benefit capex over payroll will continue to incentivize business to shift budgets from labor to robots.

I think it's becoming clear that we are reaching a point where UBI must be debated in Congress subsidized by something that doesn't wreck economic growth and probably doesn't target capital investment.

There's nothing about being in the C-suite that magically endows one with motivation based upon stock price, but we pretend that there is.

How much of the trend is due to employment trends vs. printing money for the wealthy to get their hands on it first(and profit) post recession?

There is a need for proper pricing for the rich, i.e. Elon can pay a million dollars per meal. Someone is leaving money on the table.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, please leave a downvote to indicate I caused you emotional distress.

capitalism will always seek to reduce labor cost. during the epoch of neoliberalism it achieved great strides in this by reducing labor power through union busting by both thatcher and reagan in the UK and US respectively. it has also effectively curtailed any increase in the minimum wage for nearly 20 years as well as reduced protections, regulation and prosecution for wage theft and overtime pay violations which it maintains as exclusively as civil matters while ensuring theft itself from a merchant in turn is always a criminal matter through the primacy of private property.

to learn more i recommend reading Marx's "Das Kapital," albeit its rather academic. Engels "wage labor" is also a good read to understand why housing is so persistently unaffortable but helps to understand why any other good or service slowly becomes so as well.

This is why I think the billionaire oligarchs are literally mentally ill. They've won the entire game. They control everything. They live like gods, they twitch a pinky and millions dance.

But their response to all of this power is to seek even more of it, destabilizing the very system that has them on top. You would think self-preservation would kick in. The fact that it is not and that their greed knows apparently no bounds is going to lead to their extinction.

For a long time I thought it was hyperbolic to say so, but no longer -- the billionaires are mentally ill.

[1] https://work.news/post/project-2031/

All companies are rent-seeking. Selling something is no longer a goal.

Prices go up up up up up.

Oligopolies and price fixing is normal.

Monopolies are normal with little/no controls.

People are getting paid a pittance to the work done.

Unions are their weakest in a century.

NLRB is basically frozen due to no quorum on the head board.

Companies routinely scam and lie at multiple places in hiring pipeline. FTC does nothing.

Neither party (Republicans or Democrats), save the DSA, fights for the American people.

Its all coming to a head, and baskets, and guillotines. Anybody who studies history knows what kind of powderkeg this situation is. Its also the reason the Ancient Romans made panem et circunses (bread and circus) cheap or free. You get riots and revolts otherwise.

The big picture here is increasing wealth inequality and that has been on steroids since the pandemic.

The only shocking part to me is how people continually and intentionally don't see it or, worse, think they'll be unaffected by it so don't care. You see this on HN where so many people seem to think they'll be Jeff Bezos one day.

But even if that's true, don't you want to live in a society where you don't need armed guards at your house and you don't need armed escorts to go anywhere? Because that's what we're heading towards. One of the problems with American society (in particular) being so car-centric is that it lets people insulate themselves from the rest of society more easily. In cities like NYC you're forced to see and deal with the less fortunate. You can't hide from it so easily.

We don't need trillionaires. We need to raise basic living standards so people have food and shelter and we don't need to separate society into slums and armored compounds.

[1]: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

And no, there's no simple solution to this problem. The notion that something like "Medicare for All" would solve the problem is a total fantasy, disconnected from actual US healthcare economics. Any real solution will have to work on multiple angles including preventive care, PBMs, provider wages, rationing, drug prices, fraud, malpractice insurance, interoperability technology, etc.