Your Boss Is Still Stealing From You

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has put out its preliminary, third quarter productivity and costs estimates:

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at an 8.1 percent annual rate during the third quarter of 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today (tables A and 2). This was the largest gain in
productivity since the third quarter of 2003, and reflects a 2.9 percent increase in output and a 4.8 percent decline in hours worked. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.)

... Unit labor costs in nonfarm businesses fell 2.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009, as productivity grew at a faster rate (8.1 percent) than hourly compensation (5.4 percent). Unit labor costs declined 1.4 percent over the last four quarters (tables A and 2). BLS defines unit labor costs as the ratio of hourly compensation to labor productivity; increases in hourly compensation tend to increase unit labor costs and increases in output per hour tend to reduce them.

Manufacturing sector productivity grew 13.4 percent in the third quarter of 2009, as output rose 8.4 percent and hours worked fell 4.4 percent (tables A and 3). The third quarter gain in manufacturing productivity was the largest in the series, which begins in the second quarter of 1987. Over the last four quarters, manufacturing productivity grew 3.0 percent. Manufacturing unit labor costs fell 6.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009, but rose 3.0 percent over the last four quarters. ...

American workers have been producing more, in less time, and not getting raises. In short, your boss is stealing from you.

Indeed, if the minimum wage had tracked productivity over the past 30 years, it would be $19/hour. That's how much our bosses have been stealing from us.

Get the picture?

They make more money off of your work and they don't share the increased returns. They invest money, you invest time and expertise, blood, sweat and tears, hours spent commuting and separations from your family. They get to realize a profitable return on their investment, you get to keep treading water and waiting for a ship that probably isn't coming.

They are stealing. From. You.

This is what it means to have organized labor in disarray, in retreat. This is what it means to have politicians in the pockets of the investor class, their donor classes, totally unaccountable to voters. This is what it means when both political parties are the property of the economic aristocracy. This is what it means when consumer debt obligations are sacrosanct, and business pension obligations aren't worth the paper they're written on. To paraphrase Anatole France, this is what it means when it's a crime to steal bread or sleep under a bridge, but not to crash the whole world's economy. It means they get to keep stealing from you, steal more over time, and can steal with impunity.

There are consequences to a lack of political power, to the working classes being too tired (all too understandably) to maintain civic participation, and these are them.

They get to steal from you and no one will stop them.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future