Whose recovery?
from David Ruccio
If you read the business press in the United States (e.g., the Wall Street Journal), you’ll find something along the lines of the following argument: the fact that U.S. worker productivity rebounded in the third quarter while hourly wages rose moderately is a sign “the economy is strengthening.”
But look at the numbers. Nonfarm business sector productivity (the blue line in the chart above) rose 1.5 percent (from the same quarter a year ago) while real hourly compensation (the green line) fell 1.1 percent.* The result is that unit labor costs (the red line) fell 0.7 percent.
According to Stephen Stanley of Amherst Pierpont Securities,
lighter regulation under the Trump administration and the prospect of a $1.4 trillion tax-cut package being passed by Congress are likely factors that have led companies to boost investment and become more productive.
Corporations may have chosen to boost investment and become more productive—but they have also chosen not to compensate their workers.
The only possible conclusion is that the Trump recovery is a recovery for employers but not for their employees.
Let’s see if Trump or someone in his administration will tweet that!
*Hours worked rose 1.5 percent and hourly compensation only 0.8 percent in the third quarter. As a result, real hourly compensation was -1.1 percent.
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Edward Fullbrook and Jamie Morgan
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Real-World Economics Review Blog 
“that have led companies to boost investment and become more productive”
Shall we simply accept this statement without at least a definition of the boosted “investment”? The statement comes from a fellow who works for Wall Street and earned a masters degree at the University of Chicago. What I learn these days is that such investment is increasingly in asset value growth and not productivity growth. Should we not critically examine this “investment” to see what relationship to productivity there is?
Thanks for the truth. The only option is a general strike. If the Dems weren’t so lame (pusillanimous pussyfooters) we might have a chance to rally real resistance.
It looks to me like representative democracy is about to be replaced by some form of autonomous democracy that directs governments from the outside.
Will corporatists still be attempting to brainwash people? No doubt about it.
“We already are seeing low unemployment and a tightening labor market. As a result, workers up and down the wage ladder are seeing respectable growth in wages.” (Dean Baker, Tax cuts boost growth, and other things they tell children, https://rwer.wordpress.com/2017/12/07/tax-cuts-boost-growth-and-other-things-they-tell-children/#more-31598)
How is the common man or women in the street to reconcile David’s analysis above that not only are workers working longer hours but hourly compensation not keeping up with increased workloads (we see this in our _real_ family lives daily) with Dean Baker’s claim workers are seeing “respectable growth in wages”?
Has Dean just failed to _really_ look at the numbers?
I know from our own families personal experience that David’s analysis is closer to our experienced reality. Mass lay offs or “shedding” of employees, rehiring in same job same role but with reduced wage but more work, rinse and repeat …