Where did all the compensation go?

[mrjurrs]

This chart says so much. When I thought about it, it made me consider my political ideology as well. In 1973, when the lines between employee compensation and productivity began to diverge, I was just starting my first paycheck job, washing dishes at an ice cream parlor. This chart shows me that my entire working life has driven excess compensation to management, and away from labor.

The rich get too much in America. At the expense of the middle class and the lower class. Imo, much of our division is the result of inequity. Equality of opportunity and equality before the law, does anyone really believe this is the state of America today?

https://imageio.forbes.com/blogs-im...pensation-1200x1093.png?format=png&width=1200

 

[noonereal]

much of our division is the result of inequity.

some is
Most is because we have 50 states instead of one country. This stops us from becoming one like minded people. The ignorant are not compelled to advance as they would be.

 

[Mycroft]

This chart says so much. When I thought about it, it made me consider my political ideology as well. In 1973, when the lines between employee compensation and productivity began to diverge, I was just starting my first paycheck job, washing dishes at an ice cream parlor. This chart shows me that my entire working life has driven excess compensation to management, and away from labor.

The rich get too much in America. At the expense of the middle class and the lower class. Imo, much of our division is the result of inequity. Equality of opportunity and equality before the law, does anyone really believe this is the state of America today?

https://imageio.forbes.com/blogs-im...pensation-1200x1093.png?format=png&width=1200

That's the way the Globalists want it.

 

[gdgyva]

Been discussed ad infinitum in these threads over the last five years that i have been here

What happened in the early to late 70's and into the 80's?

Computers and automation happened

Did the employees pay for the hardware? software? training? In the vast majority of cases, NO!

So management and ownership bought all this new technology and put it to use....

I have told this numerous times before....i was a new low level manager with 23 employees in my accounting and HR department

We got computers, and i really think it was Lotus 123...but i know it was one of the first spreadsheets (we had been using 18 column green workbooks)

Within two years, we also had word processing....and our office staff went from 23 down to 11 or 12

Same productivity....way less people and payroll....and all of the people that remained got good raises, but nothing compared to the profit that the owners saw after all the layoffs

Same thing happened all over not just the USA but all over the world....people working smarter, not harder

Offices using technology to accomplish more with less....

But you and many like you think the employees should have retained the same % of productivity as income....

The question is WHY? Why would ownership owe them more pay when they didnt do anything extra to earn it?

 

[Mr Person]

That's the way the Globalists want it.

Gee. That sounds familiar.

Don't worry, the pro-Globalist media will find a way to spin this as a good thing.

Oh right. That was about a battle in Ukraine, posted just after this. These globalists do sure seem to feature in a lot of your fake explanations of events. But we must not forget the pukes and the puppets, the puppet masters and the handlers, and the handler-masters, Killary, DA JOOS! oh wait you usually use the coded "Soros" for that, and all the rest of your imaginary cast.

At any rate, you have the GOP and politicians shopping for donations to thank. That doesn't fit your narrative (and I'm really not sure it is your narrative you post here). So we get "globalists". Always globalists.

 

[tshade]

This chart says so much. When I thought about it, it made me consider my political ideology as well. In 1973, when the lines between employee compensation and productivity began to diverge, I was just starting my first paycheck job, washing dishes at an ice cream parlor. This chart shows me that my entire working life has driven excess compensation to management, and away from labor.

The rich get too much in America. At the expense of the middle class and the lower class. Imo, much of our division is the result of inequity. Equality of opportunity and equality before the law, does anyone really believe this is the state of America today?

https://imageio.forbes.com/blogs-im...pensation-1200x1093.png?format=png&width=1200

Ask yourself: Have you been pro-union??

 

[mrjurrs]

Ask yourself: Have you been pro-union??

Always have been, always will be.
Without unions the fall off would have been even greater.

 

[mrjurrs]

Been discussed ad infinitum in these threads over the last five years that i have been here

What happened in the early to late 70's and into the 80's?

Computers and automation happened

Did the employees pay for the hardware? software? training? In the vast majority of cases, NO!

So management and ownership bought all this new technology and put it to use....

I have told this numerous times before....i was a new low level manager with 23 employees in my accounting and HR department

We got computers, and i really think it was Lotus 123...but i know it was one of the first spreadsheets (we had been using 18 column green workbooks)

Within two years, we also had word processing....and our office staff went from 23 down to 11 or 12

Same productivity....way less people and payroll....and all of the people that remained got good raises, but nothing compared to the profit that the owners saw after all the layoffs

Same thing happened all over not just the USA but all over the world....people working smarter, not harder

Offices using technology to accomplish more with less....

But you and many like you think the employees should have retained the same % of productivity as income....

The question is WHY? Why would ownership owe them more pay when they didnt do anything extra to earn it?

The employees were the productivity that filled in the spread sheets. Technology is just tools that employees use to accomplish their tasks. Why should management get the extra compensation, they didn't do anything to make the extra money. Didn't they buy the 18 column ledgers before they got spreadsheets?

 

[reflechissez]

What happened in the early to late 70's and into the 80's?

Computers and automation happened

Did the employees pay for the hardware? software? training? In the vast majority of cases, NO!

So management and ownership bought all this new technology and put it to use....

If management isn't ownership, then they are employees. Jamie Dimon didn't pay for anything at JPM.

 

[Helix]

Yet "unions had their day" and are no longer necessary.

Sure.

 

[gdgyva]

The employees were the productivity that filled in the spread sheets. Technology is just tools that employees use to accomplish their tasks. Why should management get the extra compensation, they didn't do anything to make the extra money. Didn't they buy the 18 column ledgers before they got spreadsheets?

Employees that stayed and learned did earn more
But that still didnt make up for the 12 employees who were no longer there
We werent going to make DOUBLE
And they basically cut the staff by 50%
The employees on average got 15-20% raises
I know my pay went up considerably as i had to learn it all
I went from 35k to 75k in three years....and over 100k in less than 5

It happened the same way all over America and the world.....
Automation and computers changed the dynamics forever
Businesses could be more profitable with technology....
And it hasnt changed since

 

[mrjurrs]

Employees that stayed and learned did earn more
But that still didnt make up for the 12 employees who were no longer there
We werent going to make DOUBLE
And they basically cut the staff by 50%
The employees on average got 15-20% raises
I know my pay went up considerably as i had to learn it all
I went from 35k to 75k in three years....and over 100k in less than 5

It happened the same way all over America and the world.....
Automation and computers changed the dynamics forever
Businesses could be more profitable with technology....
And it hasnt changed since

Really, nothings changed? I disagree.

 

[gdgyva]

No, nothing has changed in regards to employee pay vs productivity which is what this thread was supposed to be about

The management and ownership is still taking the lions share of the profits, because they are the one's that invested million's and billion's into the technology that has displaced all those workers, and made the actual work easier and faster

If all you have though is sarcasm and witticism's, i will check out

You dont want to hear the truth....or the reason why pay hasnt kept up

You just want to be mad at the rich business people and companies

Alright Don Quixote....keep swing your sword at those windmills

Have a wonderful evening

 

[tshade]

No, nothing has changed in regards to employee pay vs productivity

inflation has changed.............
Unions need to return

 

[ashurbanipal]

Did the employees pay for the hardware? software? training? In the vast majority of cases, NO!

I disagree. The companies that paid for them wouldn’t have had the money to do so without having first employed people and paid those people less than what they sold the fruits of their labor for. So the employees did pay for everything.

The question is WHY? Why would ownership owe them more pay when they didnt do anything extra to earn it?

Why do you think they didn’t do anything extra? Learning to work faster with a new tool sounds like doing something extra to me.

But there’s a much bigger question here. Let’s follow out your logic to its end state. At that point, basically everything that anyone needs done will be done by a robot or a computer, and a few people will own those. Everyone else will be shut out, because along with owning the robots and computers, those folks will own all the means of production. Everyone else will have literally nothing. That’s how the trend lines in your logic tend—fewer and fewer workers, more and more money to the owners. At the end of those trends, the few who are owners will own everything, and the many who are not will own nothing.

And what will happen then?

 

[mrjurrs]

No, nothing has changed in regards to employee pay vs productivity which is what this thread was supposed to be about

The management and ownership is still taking the lions share of the profits, because they are the one's that invested million's and billion's into the technology that has displaced all those workers, and made the actual work easier and faster

If all you have though is sarcasm and witticism's, i will check out

You dont want to hear the truth....or the reason why pay hasnt kept up

You just want to be mad at the rich business people and companies

Alright Don Quixote....keep swing your sword at those windmills

Have a wonderful evening

Nope, the thread was about where has the compensation for extra employee productivity gone. It has gone to a limited number of already rich people. Wealth inequality and income inequality have changed quite dramatically in the last 50 years. You're okay with that?

FYI, it wasn't a sword, it was a lance.

 

[ashurbanipal]

No, nothing has changed in regards to employee pay vs productivity which is what this thread was supposed to be about

The management and ownership is still taking the lions share of the profits, because they are the one's that invested million's and billion's into the technology that has displaced all those workers, and made the actual work easier and faster

And where did they get those millions and billions? Where did they get the money to purchase the previous generation of tools (that, no doubt, also increased productivity)? They got it by paying their employees less than the value of those employees' labor, in a system in which most people have no choice but to become employees in that system.

As to the work being "easier and faster"--that may be true from management's point of view, in that more units are made or shipped in the same time--but employees have had to learn new skills that are simply not compensated, as they were the last time employees had to learn new skills.

With those points in the light, your justifications seem quite flimsy. Actually, your justifications seem simply incorrect--like a rapist blaming the rape victim for wearing provocative clothing or something like that. The deal was always, until fairly recently, that the masters (as Adam Smith called the business owners) provided the place and tools of the business, the employees brought the skills, and were compensated accordingly. You are trying to insist that that deal should change in a way that favors the already wealthy managers and owners...when the original social/economic contract as conceived by Locke, Smith, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and others had already changed during the Industrial Revolution, and not in a way that favored workers, all while trying to maintain the propaganda cover of the original social contract.

It should be obvious that people are, more and more, seeing through such tactic. Change is coming. Slowly, but it's coming...