While you fight for other people non-economic rights capital privatizes your wages and salaries

 Personal income in the USA is the key indicator of the money share between labor and capital. Figure 1 shows personal income in nominal dollars at a quarterly rate. The employee share is defined by the “Compensation of employees’ and in a narrow sense by “Wages and salaries”.

Figure 2 demonstrates that the share of personal income related to “compensation of employees” has been decreasing since the 1970s, and lost almost 5% between 2004 and 2012. This dramatic fall is related to “wages and salaries”. People lose income for their jobs and this lost income fled to those who own the capital.   Figure 3 illustrates the share of wages and salaries in the compensation of employees. It dropped by almost 15% between 1948 and 1994.   

Figure 1. Nominal estimates of personal income, compensation of employees, and wages and salaries in the USA since 1947.  

 

Figure 2. The shares of “Compensation of employees” and “Wages and salaries” in the “Personal income”, as presented in Figure 1. The period since 2000 is presented separately to highlight the fall in the shares of personal income. 

Figure 3. The ratio of “Wages and salaries” and “Compensation of employees”.