The Golden Era Of Profitability

NYTimes (08.28.06), via FirstDraft:

"With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers. That situation is adding to fears among Republicans that the economy will hurt vulnerable incumbents in this year’s midterm elections even though overall growth has been healthy for much of the last five years." Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity

Real wages are down since 2003 even though productivity "has risen steadily over the same period"? Uhhhh, well actually, it's worse than that. For the past five years, real wages haven't gone anywhere. Don't believe it? Go see for yourself. Check the box for "Constant (1982) dollars", then hit the "Retrieve data" button towards the bottom. For July, 2006, the average hourly earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers in 1982 dollars was $8.16. Same as they were in October, 2001. So if real wages have been stagnant, but productivity has been rising, where's all that money going? Ha! Say no more. "(C)orporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as 'the golden era of profitability.'" Wages and salaries "now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947...."