本文探讨了工资与生产力脱钩的现象，分析了该现象在不同国家和历史时期的表现，并探讨了健康保险等因素的影响。文章指出，工资与生产力脱钩并非新现象，在历史上曾多次出现，但现代的脱钩现象更为严重。文章还分析了健康保险对工资的影响，并指出健康保险的增长并不能完全解释工资与生产力脱钩现象。

🤔 **工资与生产力脱钩并非新现象**：文章通过历史数据表明，工资与生产力脱钩并非从1973年才开始，在历史上曾多次出现，但现代的脱钩现象更为严重，且在不同国家表现出不同的时间节点。例如，英国的工资与生产力脱钩现象始于1990年，而美国则始于1973年。

🧐 **健康保险无法完全解释工资脱钩**：虽然健康保险的成本近年来大幅上涨，但文章指出，健康保险的增长并不能完全解释工资与生产力脱钩现象。因为工资增长最差的群体是低收入群体，而低收入群体往往没有健康保险。

🤨 **其他因素影响工资增长**：除了健康保险之外，还有一些其他因素可能导致工资与生产力脱钩。例如，技术进步、全球化、工会力量下降等因素都可能对工资增长产生负面影响。

🤔 **工资脱钩的深层原因**：文章没有给出明确的结论，但暗示了工资与生产力脱钩的深层原因可能与资本主义制度的内在矛盾有关。资本主义制度追求利润最大化，而工资成本是企业利润的主要支出，因此企业会尽力压低工资成本。

🧐 **工资与生产力脱钩的社会影响**：工资与生产力脱钩会导致收入差距扩大，社会不平等加剧，进而影响社会稳定和经济发展。

🤨 **应对工资脱钩的措施**：文章没有给出具体的应对措施，但暗示了需要采取措施来提高工人的工资水平，例如提高最低工资标准、加强工会力量、改善劳动法等。

🤔 **未来展望**：文章没有明确的未来展望，但暗示了工资与生产力脱钩的现象可能会持续下去，并对社会产生深远的影响。

🧐 **文章的局限性**：文章主要基于历史数据进行分析，没有深入探讨工资与生产力脱钩的具体原因和解决方法。

[Epistemic status: I am basing this on widely-accepted published research, but I can’t guarantee I’ve understood the research right or managed to emphasize/believe the right people. Some light editing to bring in important points people raised in the comments.]

You all know this graph:

 

 

Median wages tracked productivity until 1973, then stopped. Productivity kept growing, but wages remained stagnant.

This is called “wage decoupling”. Sometimes people talk about wages decoupling from GDP, or from GDP per capita, but it all works out pretty much the same way. Increasing growth no longer produces increasing wages for ordinary workers.

Is this true? If so, why?

1. What Does The Story Look Like Across Other Countries And Time Periods?

Here’s a broader look, from 1800 on:

 

 

It no longer seems like a law of nature that productivity and wages are coupled before 1973. They seem to uncouple and recouple several times, with all the previous graphs’ starting point in 1950 being a period of unusual coupledness. Still, the modern uncoupling seems much bigger than anything that’s happened before.

What about other countries? This graph is for the UK (you can tell because it spells “labor” as “labour”)

 

 

It looks similar, except that the decoupling starts around 1990 instead of around 1973.

And here’s Europe:

 

 

This is only from 1999 on, so it’s not that helpful. But it does show that even in this short period, France remains coupled, Germany is decoupled, Spain is…doing whatever Spain is doing, and Italy is so pathetic that the problem never even comes up. Overall not sure what to think about these.

2. Could Apparent Wage Decoupling Be Because Of Health Insurance?

Along with wages, workers are compensated in benefits like health insurance. Since health insurance has skyrocketed in price, this means total worker compensation has gone up much more than wages have. This could mean workers are really getting compensated much more, even though they’re being paid the same amount of money. This view has sometimes been associated with economist Glenn Hubbard.

There are a few lines of argument that suggest it’s not true.

First, wage growth has been worst for the lowest-paid workers. But the lowest-paid workers don’t usually get insurance at all.