America Needs its Unions More Than Ever

As long as a substantial majority of American adults believe that their children will not live as well as they did our politics will remain bitter and divisive. Middle class anxiety is surely also fed by the slow growth of wages even in the ninth year of economic recovery with unemployment at historic low levels. The Phillips curve - the view that tighter labour markets spur an acceleration of wage growth - appears to have broken down. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported that average hourly earnings last month rose by all of 3 cents or little more than 0.1 per cent. For the last year, they rose by only 2.5 per cent. In contrast profits of the S&P 500 are rising at a 16 per cent annual rate.

What is going on? Economists do not have complete answers. In part there are inevitable fluctuations. Profits have declined in recent years. The wages that are reflected by the BLS are earned in the US, whereas a little less than half of profits are earned abroad and have become more valuable as the dollar has declined. In part, wages have not risen more because a strengthening labour market has drawn more people into the workforce.