We were chewing some numbers over dinner. They were published in the Strib's "By the numbers" column Sunday, which seems to make in online a week late.
$63,885 Value of the work produced per employee in the United States in 2006, according to the International Labor Organization.
$48,451 Median household income in the United States in 2006, according to the Census Bureau.
Obviously, in a capitalist nation, workers should produce more value than they are paid. But what is the right (as in moral) gap between value and pay?
Not all that value is created solely as a result of the worker's labor. Higher productivity is a measure of investment — in technology, training, physical assets, etc. — as well as of human ingenuity and diligence.
There's also got to be big differences among industries. In my marketing company, we had little capital investment other than computers; people were by far are greatest expense. I figure a manufacturing company with high capital investment would justly have a wider gap between worker pay and value creation.
Also note the apple and the orange. The value is stated per employee. The income is stated per household, so the gap is wider than it first appears. And as we know, income in the upper brackets increasingly comes from capital, not labor.
In America, we have moved on from exploiting our own workers, anyway. Real wealth is created by exploiting someone else's workers — in another nation, or in other companies, through financial manipulation.
The numbers raise a question, but don't provide any answers about whether American workers are justly compensated. One thing is certain: The "value gap" money flows up, not down.
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The ILO report, which I haven't studied, looks beyond income to try to measure whether people have "decent work."
Decent work is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families as well as allowing people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives.
“Hundreds of millions of women and men are working hard and long but without the conditions they need to lift themselves and their families out of poverty; they risk falling deeper into poverty. Releasing their underutilized capacities by raising their productive potential must be at the top of the international development agenda,” said Mr. Somavia.
According to the [“Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM), fifth Edition”], 1.5 billion people in the world – or one-third of the working-age population – are “potentially underutilized”. This new estimate of labour underutilization is comprised of the 195.7 million unemployed people in the world and nearly 1.3 billion working poor who live with their families on less than US$ 2 per day per family member. Whereas the unemployed want to work but lack the opportunity to do so, the working poor are working but do not earn enough to escape poverty.
The report also estimates that half of all women and men employed are considered vulnerable to poverty.
