If you have to earn a salary in the current economy (as opposed to, say, live off your dividends) you’re screwed. Not least because asshole corporate types think you’re a brainless serf. Daniel Indiviglio’s column ‘Why Are Corporate Profits High While Jobs and Wages Stagnate?’ in The Atlantic doesn’t offer any fresh information about the economy but it says volumes about bankers disdain for workers. In response to the question: “Why aren’t corporations instead hiring more people or compensating workers them more fairly for their higher productivity?” Indiviglio explains:
There aren’t a lot of jobs out there, but there is a huge number of unemployed people. This is an employer’s market. People are desperate for jobs. So employers can use the situation to their advantage. In this case, they can get away with paying their current workers less in relation to their productivity … right now, most workers have little bargaining power: their employer can find someone else to accept relatively poor pay instead; after all, there are more than 20 million Americans who have no job but want one.
Oh gee whiz! Supply and demand! How confusing! I’m so glad Mr Indiviglio is here to explain everything. But wait — there’s more. Gather round, you simple souls, he has NEWS.
“The good news is that workers will eventually have more negotiating power again to demand fairer wages.” Yay! Smiley Face!
“The bad news, however, is that a healthy labor market that would create this opportunity is likely still at least a few years off.” Boo.
But hey, at least corporate profits are up, and we all know that’s what really matters.
