Productividad y salarios

reales
Alejandro Valle Baeza
2016-II
Relación contable salarios reales
y productividad del trabajo
 En la economía convencional el nexo entre
salarios reales y productividad se trata sin
recurrir a la teoría:
 σp participación salarial en PIB
 S volumen salarios
 Y PIB nominal
 DI índice de precios del PIB
 IPC índice de precios al consumidor

 La expresión 4 nos dice que la
participación de los salarios es igual al
cociente salario real productividad
multiplicado por el cociente IPC/DI.
 No aparece la productividad multifactorial
por ninguna parte y para llegar a ella se
utiliza la productividad del trabajo (en
rigor errónea dentro de la teoría
convencional).
 Wage stagnation experienced by the vast
majority of American workers has emerged as a
central issue in economic policy debates, with
candidates and leaders of both parties noting its
importance. This is a welcome development
because it means that economic inequality has
become a focus of attention and that
policymakers are seeing the connection between
wage stagnation and inequality. Put simply,
wage stagnation is how the rise in inequality has
damaged the vast majority of American workers.
 Income and Wealth Inequality
 Today, we live in the richest country in the
history of the world, but that reality
means little because much of that wealth
is controlled by a tiny handful of
individuals.
 The issue of wealth and income inequality
is the great moral issue of our time, it is
the great economic issue of our time, and
it is the great political issue of our time.
 https://berniesanders.com/issues/income-
and-wealth-inequality/
 Do you see anything there that specifically
addresses income inequality? I don't. He
sure does have a lot of merchandise for
sale, though (Shop Trump for President
Apparel, Hats & Signage).
 “How does Donald Trump plan to address
income inequality?” Josh DiGiorgio,
American.
 https://www.quora.com/How-does-
Donald-Trump-plan-to-address-income-
inequality
 On Sunday, Republican presidential candidate
Donald Trump struck a populist tone when
talking about hedge funds and the taxes they
pay. “They’re paying nothing and it’s ridiculous,”
he told John Dickerson on Face the Nation.
“They make a fortune, they pay no tax, it’s
ridiculous okay.”
 … “they have to pay tax.” Without specifying
exactly how he would change that, he added
that he wants to lower tax rates for middle-class
Americans. “The middle class is the one, they’re
getting absolutely destroyed.”

 Donald Trump Changes His Tune On
Taxing The Super Rich
 BRYCE COVERT AUG 24, 2015 10:05 AM
 http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/0
8/24/3694491/trump-tax-populism/
 With the Iowa caucuses less than three months
away, the Republican presidential candidates
have suddenly begun discussing income
inequality a whole lot more.
 During the first two debates, GOP candidates
used words like “inequality,” “disparity,” “rich,”
“poor,” and “middle class” just 0.06 percent of
the time, according to an analysis by the
communications and consulting firm Logos
Consulting Group. That rate tripled in the Oct.
28 debate, the first one after the Democratic
debate that featured more discussion of
inequality. It rose again to 0.20 percent in
Tuesday night's GOP debate.
 “Rising Income Inequality Causes
Republicans to Shift Rhetoric—But Not
Policy” The GOP presidential contenders
have embraced the kind of language more
associated with Democrats.
 Sahil Kapur
 http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/article
s/2015-11-12/rising-income-inequality-
causes-republicans-to-shift-rhetoric-but-
not-policy
 “Understanding the historic divergence
between productivity and a typical
workers pay why it matters and why its
real”
 Josh Bivens and Lawrence Mishel •
September 2, 2015
 Briefing Paper #406
 Economic Policy Institute
 http://www.epi.org/
 On December 22, 2017, President Trump
signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It cuts
individual income tax rates, doubles the
standard deduction, and eliminates
personal exemptions. The top individual
tax rate drops to 37%.

 The Act cut the corporate tax rate from

35% to 21% beginning in 2018. The
corporate cuts are permanent, while the
individual changes expire at the end of
2025.
 Trump's Tax Plan and How It Affects You
 By Kimberly Amadeo
 Updated April 12, 2019
 The Balance
 Income Tax Rate Income Levels for Those Filing As:
2017 2018-2025 Single Married-Joint
10% 10% $0-$9,525 $0-$19,050
15% 12% $9,525-$38,700 $19,050-$77,400
25% 22% $38,700-$82,500 $77,400-$165,000
28% 24% $82,500-$157,500 $165,000-$315,000
$315,000-
33% 32% $157,500-$200,000
$400,000
33%-35% 35% $200,000-$500,000 $400,000-$600,000
39.6% 37% $500,000+ $600,000+
 The biggest difference between the Trump
and Bush or Obama tax cuts is the
timing. The Trump tax cut occurred while
the economy was solidly in the expansion
phase of the business cycle.
 The Tax Cut and Jobs Act significantly
changed personal and corporate taxes.
Corporations benefit more since their cuts
are permanent while the individual cuts
expire in 2025.
 Increase in sovereign debt dampens
economic growth in the long run.
Investors see it as a tax increase on future
generations. That's especially true if the
ratio of debt-to-GDP is near 77%. That's
the tipping point, according to a study by
the World Bank. It found that every
percentage point of debt above this level
costs the country 1.7% in growth. The
U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio was 104% before
the tax cuts.
 The Economic Policy Institute’s earlier
paper, Raising America’s Pay: Why It’s Our
Central Economic Policy Challenge,
presented a thorough analysis of income
and wage trends, documented rising wage
inequality, and provided strong evidence
that wage stagnation is largely the result
of policy choices that boosted the
bargaining power of those with the most
wealth and power (Bivens et al. 2014).
 As we argued, better policy choices, made
with low- and moderate-wage earners in
mind, can lead to more widespread wage
growth and strengthen and expand the
middle class.
 This paper updates and explains the
implications of the central component of
the wage stagnation story: the growing
gap between overall productivity growth
and the pay of the vast majority of
workers since the 1970s.
 First, wages did not stagnate for the vast
majority because growth in productivity
(or income and wealth creation) collapsed.
 Second, pay failed to track productivity
primarily due to two key dynamics
representing rising inequality: the rising
inequality of compensation (more wage
and salary income accumulating at the
very top of the pay scale) and the shift in
the share of overall national income going
to owners of capital and away from the
pay of employees.
 Third, although boosting productivity
growth is an important long-run goal, this
will not lead to broad-based wage gains
unless we pursue policies that reconnect
productivity growth and the pay of the
vast majority.
 Ever since EPI first drew attention to the
decoupling of pay and productivity (Mishel
and Bernstein 1994), our work has been
widely cited in economic analyses and by
policymakers. It has also attracted
criticisms from those looking to deny the
facts of inequality.
 For decades following the end of World
War II, inflation-adjusted hourly
compensation (including employer-
provided benefits as well as wages) for
the vast majority of American workers
rose in line with increases in economy-
wide productivity.
 Thus hourly pay became the primary
mechanism that transmitted economy-
wide productivity growth into broad-based
increases in living standards.
 Since 1973, hourly compensation of the
vast majority of American workers has not
risen in line with economy-wide
productivity.
 Net productivity grew 72.2 percent
between 1973 and 2014. Yet inflation-
adjusted hourly compensation of the
median worker rose just 8.7 percent, or
0.20 percent annually
 Another measure of the pay of the typical
worker, real hourly compensation of
production, nonsupervisory workers, who
make up 80 percent of the workforce, also
shows pay stagnation for most of the
period since 1973, rising 9.2 percent
between 1973 and 2014.
 Since 2000, more than 80 percent of the
divergence between a typical (median)
worker’s pay growth and overall net
productivity growth has been driven by
rising inequality (specifically, greater
inequality of compensation and a falling
share of income going to workers relative
to capital owners). Over the entire
1973–2014 period, rising inequality
explains over two-thirds of the
productivity–pay divergence.
 If the hourly pay of typical American
workers had kept pace with productivity
growth since the 1970s, then there would
have been no rise in income inequality
during that period. Instead, productivity
growth that did not accrue to typical
workers’ pay concentrated at the very top
of the pay scale (in inflated CEO pay, for
example) and boosted incomes accruing
to owners of capital.
 Policies to spur widespread wage growth,
therefore, must not only encourage
productivity growth (via full employment,
education, innovation, and public
investment) but also restore the link
between growing productivity and the
typical worker’s pay.
 Finally, the economic evidence indicates
that the rising gap between productivity
and pay for the vast majority likely has
nothing to do with any stagnation in the
typical worker’s individual productivity. For
example, even the lowest-paid American
workers have made considerable gains in
educational attainment and experience in
recent decades, which should have raised
their productivity.
 Productivity is simply the total amount of
output (or income) generated in an
average hour of work. As such, growth in
an economy’s productivity provides
the potential for rising living standards
over time. However, it is clear by now that
this potential is unrealized for many
Americans: Wages and compensation for
the typical worker have lagged far behind
the nation’s productivity growth in recent
decades,
 Note: Data are for average hourly
compensation of
production/nonsupervisory workers in the
private sector and net productivity of the
total economy. "Net productivity" is the
growth of output of goods and services
minus depreciation per hour worked.
 Source: EPI analysis of data from the
BEA and BLS (see technical appendix for
more detailed information)
 …lots of what is classified in the data we
use as “labor compensation” actually has a
strong character of capital income. For
example, CEO pay—including realized
stock option gains of executives and
bonus pay—is classified in the data we
examine as labor compensation. But
because these stock option gains and
bonus pay are influenced by stock prices
(among other reasons), many analysts
have argued that they could instead be
considered capital income (see Freeman,
Blasi, and Kruse 2011).
 In the 1950s, a typical CEO made 20 times
the salary of his or her average worker.
Last year, CEO pay at an S&P 500 Index
firm soared to an average of 361 times
more than the average rank-and-file
worker, or pay of $13,940,000 a year,
according to an AFL-CIO’s Executive
Paywatch news release today.
MAY 1, 2018: May Day protest near Wall
Street in Lower Manhattan
 May 22, 2018, “CEO Pay Skyrockets To
361 Times That Of The Average Worker”
 Diana Hembree
 Forbes
 Conclusión
 Dentro de la teoría neoclásica no se puede
ligar la productividad del trabajo Y/L con
los salarios.
 Los análisis empíricos si lo hacen aunque
deben resaltarse las dificultades:
– No todo lo que aparece como salario lo es.
– Consecuentemente la conclusión de que la
desigualdad de ingreso dentro de los
asalariados explica el rezago de los salarios
con respecto a la productividad debe
modificarse.
 La teoría marxista es indispensable
porque:
– Legitima el uso de la productividad laboral en
el análisis.
– Pone el acento en las dos clases de ingresos:
ganancias y salarios.
 La relación entre la teoría y la realidad es
siempre compleja:
 La productividad y el salario medio
muestran un aumento de la explotación:
que se explica por el aumento de las
ganancias.
 La gráfica muestra comportamientos muy
diversos entre media y mediana (tema de
Estadística).
 Se explica la diferencia porque la media
crece más que la mediana por los ingresos
de los altos salarios.
 Los altos ingresos son ¿salarios o
ganancias?