Investor's economy

[timelets]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/despite-tight-job-market-labor-forces-income-is-squeezed-11550930400

Employee pay and benefits as a percentage of gross domestic income fell to 52.7% in last year’s third quarter, for the fourth straight quarterly decline, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It was as high as 59% in 1970 and 57% in 2001. If workers were commanding as much of domestic income as they did in 2001, they’d have nearly $800 billion more in their pockets, or $5,100 per employed American.

While the labor share has fallen, business profits are on the rise. Income of corporations, proprietorships, landlords and other businesses has climbed from less than 12% of gross domestic income in the 1980s to more than 20%.

What’s puzzling about the labor share’s decline in recent quarters is that it occurred at a time when unemployment was below 4%, wages were growing at the fastest pace in a decade and many company executives were complaining of worker shortages. Similar conditions in the past have pushed the labor share up and the profit share down as companies dug into their margins to retain increasingly scarce workers.