Josh Bivens at Economic Policy Institute writes—Yes, David Brooks, there really is a class war:
New York Times columnist David Brooks, in an article sub-titled “No, Virginia, there is no class war,” recently trotted out an old argument about why wage growth has been so sluggish for so many U.S. workers for so long: they’re just not very good workers. Specifically, he argues that “wages are still mostly determined by skills and productivity.” Ergo, if there is growing inequality in wages, it must be driven by inequality in workers’ own productivity.
But the evidence he cites is totally unconvincing on this.
First, he notes that wages for lower-wage workers have recently grown more rapidly than for middle-wage workers. But it’s been shown again and again that this is driven in large-part by those states that have raised their minimum wages. It’s also been shown that tighter labor markets disproportionately benefit the lowest-paid workers. The argument that changes in relative bargaining power and economic leverage have been the prime mover of wage trends in recent decades is not an argument that wages can never rise, period. When policies change—like minimum wages increase and the Fed allows labor markets to tighten without slamming on the interest rate brakes—good things happen. We just need to change a lot more policies. [...]
Finally, we should mention this bit of his column: “Today’s successful bosses are doing what they should be doing: increasing productivity, growing their businesses and offering great service.”[...]
CEOs of large public companies made salaries 45 times as large as the pay median workers in their industries in 1989. By 2018, they made 278 times as much. It seems awfully unlikely this was driven entirely by CEOs’ own productivity. We know, for example, that CEO pay is largely driven by luck.
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES
QUOTATION
“In regards to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.”
~~Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2010—MA-Sen: Campaign Frenzy:
The first conversation you have with people in Massachusetts these days is about what phone calls they've gotten. "I was home today," my father told me on Friday, "and the bulk of the phone calls we got were about the election: Bill Clinton, the DNC, a Coakley volunteer, the Brown campaign, my union president..." Saturday, it was a robocall from Scott Brown's daughter complaining about the negative attacks against her father. (That is, against disclosure of his record and positions.) Today, my mother answered the phone and was asked if she believed that marriage was between a man and a woman. When she replied no, the National Organization for Marriage thanked her and signed off. Moments later, the phone rang. It was MassEquality calling to let people know NOM was making calls.
At Coakley campaign headquarters, and nearby at the Massachusetts Democratic Party, volunteer phonebankers often apologize for the volume of calls people are getting. But they keep calling, and the stacks of completed call sheets are added to as fast as they can be entered in the computers. The complacency that plagued us just a week ago has been thoroughly punctured and volunteers have flooded in.
No, Massachusetts is not accustomed to this kind of campaign.
Massachusetts is also not accustomed to a candidate as low-down and scum-sucking as Scott Brown, and once again the compressed schedule of what you might call the real campaign is an issue, forcing voters to absorb the rapid-fire succession of stories only now coming out about Brown, after he's spent months defining himself as that telegenic guy who never says the word "Republican.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Batting away Dersh's GAO letter defense. Emo Trump vs. toilets. The latest excerpt of the latest book to say Trump is a moron jerkass is actually quite amazing. Yes, there were American injuries in that Iranian missile strike. Gaetz-gate: Is Matt a perv?
RadioPublic|LibSyn|YouTube|Patreon|Square Cash (Share code: Send $5, get $5!)