Reluctant Theologian
אַבְרָהָם
- Jul 13, 2021
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Interesting ... I'm not a USA resident but it can't be a coincidence that exactly from that year the gold-standard for the USD was abandoned (Bretton-Woods) and inflation started to erase the value of money in the USA (and similar patterns have emerged in other currency areas).Productivity–Pay Tracker
Change 1979q4–2025q2:
Productivity
+87.3%
Hourly pay
+32.7%
Productivity has grown 2.7x as much as pay
View attachment 373883
The graph indicates that from 1948 until 1973 hourly wages and worker productivity operated largely in tandem!
starting in 1974, however, this link began to unravel - hourly compensation flat-lined while productivity continued with its upward trajectory!
Between 1979 and 2025 productivity increased by 87.3% while wages increased by a modest 32.7%!
That translates into an average increase of 1.4% per year in productivity versus 0,6% average increase in wages
Even !he advantage of a 2.7X factor in favor of productivity wasn't enough to satisfy some corporations transfer their manufacturing to off-shore locations - meanwhile citing high labor costs in America as the underlying justification!
Fast forward to 2025 with the Trump Administration with massive cuts being made to fund massive tax cuts for the wealthy
- federal s of Nov 18, 211,000 government employees have left the workforce
- insisting on stringent rules for the 42 million SNAP recipients,
- dispensing with financial support for Obamacare that translates into 10 million losing their healthcare insurance -a projected 15 million by 2034
- insisting that prices are decreasing despite evidence confirming the contrary
The wealthiest 50% of Americans own 98% of America's wealth, those at the very bottom of the other 50% with a combined 2% of the wealth and receiving government assistance have become the designated target by the rest of society!-
Meanwhile the top 0,1% which control 13.8% of the nation's wealth and benefited most from the productivity/wage gap since 1979 are waiting at the front of the line because they are deserving of yet another tax-cut - adding to the national debt that becomes the responsibility of all Americans
View attachment 373888
"According to a 2021 White House study, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent."
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"The US government is estimated to have lost around $135 billion in revenue due to corporate tax avoidance in 2017. In contrast, corporate philanthropy has amounted to less than $20 billion a year.""
"Corporations shifted nearly $1 trillion in global profits to tax havens in 2022—depriving countries all over the world of desperately needed tax revenue.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 23 of the largest and most profitable companies in the US paid no federal corporate income taxes from 2018-2022. And 109 corporations paid zero federal tax in at least one of those years."
The wealthiest members in American society are waiting in the wings while the poorer segments are fighting over "THE SCRAPS" - denouncing each other for taking advantage of the system! while the real culprits get a "FREE PASS!"
Do the rich pay their fair share?
Billionaire wealth and corporate profits have surged. New Trump administration proposals will affect both. Are they paying their fair share?www.oxfamamerica.org
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