The U.S. economy continues to stagnate. It's growing at the rate of 1.8 percent, which is barely growing at all. Consumer spending is down. Home prices are down. Jobs and wages are going nowhere.
It's vital that we understand the truth about the American economy.
How did we go from the Great Depression to 30 years of Great Prosperity? And from there, to 30 years of stagnant incomes and widening inequality, culminating in the Great Recession? And from the Great Recession into such an anemic recovery?
The Great Prosperity
During three decades from 1947 to 1977, the nation implemented what
might be called a basic bargain with American workers. Employers paid
them enough to buy what they produced. Mass production and mass
consumption proved perfect complements. Almost everyone who wanted a job
could find one with good wages, or at least wages that were trending
upward.
During these three decades everyone's wages grew -- not just those at or near the top.
Government
enforced the basic bargain in several ways. It used Keynesian policy to
achieve nearly full employment. It gave ordinary workers more
bargaining power. It provided social insurance. And it expanded public
investment. Consequently, the portion of total income that went to the
middle class grew while the portion going to the top declined. But this
was no zero-sum game. As the economy grew almost everyone came out
ahead, including those at the top.
The pay of workers in the bottom fifth grew 116 percent over these
years -- faster than the pay of those in the top fifth (which rose 99
percent), and in the top 5 percent (86 percent).
Productivity
also grew quickly. Labor productivity -- average output per hour worked --
doubled. So did median incomes. Expressed in 2007 dollars, the typical
family's income rose from about $25,000 to $55,000. The basic bargain
was cinched.
The middle class had the means to buy, and their
buying created new jobs. As the economy grew, the national debt shrank
as a percentage of it.
The Great Prosperity also marked the culmination of a reorganization
of work that had begun during the Depression. Employers were required by
law to provide extra pay -- time-and-a-half -- for work stretching beyond
40 hours a week. This created an incentive for employers to hire
additional workers when demand picked up. Employers also were required
to pay a minimum wage, which improved the pay of workers near the bottom
as demand picked up.
When workers were laid off, usually during
an economic downturn, government provided them with unemployment
benefits, usually lasting until the economy recovered and they were
rehired. Not only did this tide families over but it kept them buying
goods and services -- an "automatic stabilizer" for the economy in
downturns.
Perhaps most significantly, government increased the bargaining leverage of ordinary workers. They were guaranteed the right to join labor unions, with which employers had to bargain in good faith. By the mid-1950s more than a third of all America workers in the private sector were unionized. And the unions demanded and received a fair slice of the American pie. Non-unionized companies, fearing their workers would otherwise want a union, offered similar deals.
Americans also enjoyed economic security against the risks of economic life -- not only unemployment benefits but also, through Social Security, insurance against disability, loss of a major breadwinner, workplace injury and inability to save enough for retirement. In 1965 came health insurance for the elderly and the poor (Medicare and Medicaid). Economic security proved the handmaiden of prosperity. In requiring Americans to share the costs of adversity it enabled them to share the benefits of peace of mind. And by offering peace of mind, it freed them to consume the fruits of their labors.
The government sponsored the dreams of American families to own their
own home by providing low-cost mortgages and interest deductions on
mortgage payments. In many sections of the country, government
subsidized electricity and water to make such homes habitable. And it
built the roads and freeways that connected the homes with major
commercial centers.
Government also widened access to higher
education. The GI Bill paid college costs for those who returned from
war. The expansion of public universities made higher education
affordable to the American middle class.
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