Productivity is at it's highest rate in years. American workers stay longer in the office, at the factory or on the farm than their counterparts in Europe and most other rich nations, and they produce more per person over the year.
They also get more done per hour than everyone but the Norwegians, according to a U.N. report released Monday, which said the United States "leads the world in labor productivity."
Each U.S. worker produces $63,885 of wealth per year, more than their counterparts in all other countries, the International Labor Organization said in its report. Ireland comes in second at $55,986, ahead of Luxembourg, $55,641; Belgium, $55,235; and France, $54,609.
U.S. Workers World's Most Productive - CBS News
In short, productivity has increased far beyond wages. Profits are up, and corporations are making more money than ever. Wages however are stagnant.
Clearly if that were true, the standard of living for everyone would be up. It isn't. Why not?
That's simply not true. They're producing more and getting paid less. The U.S. employee put in an average 1,804 hours of work in 2006, the report said. That compared with 1,407.1 hours for the Norwegian worker, and 1,564.4 for the French. The fact is that corporate profits have soared. The Dow is around 14,000. The reason for extremely high profits is cheap labor. In other words, it's simply greed.
There are so many holes in your theory, it's hard to know where to begin. We should start with the understanding that it's theory. Not science. It's not demonstrably true. We can also say that you're simply making an argument for keeping wages low. Why you want to keep people from raising their standard of living is beyond me, but that's what the entire argument is centered on. High profitablity for the company at the expense of the worker. What it really boils down to is the amount of profit a company accepts as opposed to how much can they wring out of their employees. If they accepted slightely less to cover a higher wage for the employee what do they gain? For one thing they probably gain a more loyal workforce and reduced turnover. The longer they keep employees the higher their skills become, which makes them even more productive. An experienced worker is going to be more productive than a newbie. They're capable of producing more in less time. Another benifit is that with higher wages the employee has more money at his disposal which also translates into greater purchasing power. He'll buy a new appliance, or a car, or a home. He'll inject more money into the local ecomomy. With this additional purchasing power, other business benefit by selling more goods because of the higher demand for what they sell. That demand puts a strain on other businesses to meet the demand which they can do through hiring more people to keep up with that demand. The consumer always drives job creation. When there is a demand for goods and services, a company will hire people. No company hires a person without that demand. If they did, they'd be laying people off right away or go broke. It takes customers coming through the doors to sell the product. More money in peoples pocket, more spending of that money and more people hired to meet that demand. In the end, the effect of lowering the profit margin is offset through higher volume of goods sold. The company may make less per unit, but they offset that by selling more units of what they offer. It has to do with profit margin.
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