Spurred by continuing confusion over the extent to which weak wage growth can be blamed on upward redistribution to profits and high end wage earners, I decided to do a quick accounting exercise to lay out the basic numbers. Using total economy productivity (instead of non-farm business sector), and adjust for the gap between gross output and net output, and the difference between inflation rates measured with a consumption deflator and output deflator, it turns out that the slowdown from the 1947-73 period to the post 1973 period is even larger than is generally recognized. Furthermore, even in the period of the post-1995 acceleration �usable productivity� growth is still a full 1.2 percentage points below the 1947-73 average. It looks like we don�t have very much to show for a quarter century of trade liberalization, deregulation and union busting. You can get the full story here.
--Dean Baker
