Productivity and worker compensation decoupled after 1980 deregulation.

Evidence

As seen in the labor share of income documented in figure 1.15, workers are allocated less and less, despite steady levels of productivity. Figure 1.16 compares the rates of productivity and compensation, which rose in tandem during the postwar prosperity but were decoupled when the Reagan administration deregulated finance and weakened union power. Since 1980, worker compensation has been stagnant, while union membership rates continue to decline. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 89

Categorization

• XREF: The productivity-compensation decoupling narrative sets up why artists/labor in cultural industries lost bargaining power — core premise for ownership fingerprints on form. — connects to: Calling post-1980 policy shifts ‘deregulation’ misdescribes what happened. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 47