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.
Hvordan gik vi fra den store depression til 30 år med stor velstand? Og derfra til 30 år med stagnerende indkomster og voksende ulighed, kulminerende i den store recession? Og fra den store recession til sådan en anæmisk bedring?
Den store velstand
I løbet af tre årtier fra 1947 til 1977 gennemførte nationen, hvad man kunne kalde en grundlæggende handel med amerikanske arbejdere. Arbejdsgiverne betalte dem nok til at købe det, de producerede. Masseproduktion og masseforbrug viste sig at være perfekte komplementer. Næsten alle, der ønskede et job, kunne finde et med gode lønninger, eller i det mindste lønninger, der var stigende.
During these three decades everyone's wages grew – not just those at or near the top.
Regeringen håndhævede den grundlæggende aftale på flere måder. Den brugte keynesiansk politik til at opnå næsten fuld beskæftigelse. Det gav almindelige arbejdere mere forhandlingsstyrke. Det gav socialforsikring. Og det udvidede de offentlige investeringer. Som følge heraf voksede den del af den samlede indkomst, der gik til middelklassen, mens den del, der gik til toppen, faldt. Men dette var ikke noget nulsumsspil. Efterhånden som økonomien voksede, kom næsten alle foran, inklusive dem i toppen.
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.
Middelklassen havde midlerne til at købe, og deres køb skabte nye job. Efterhånden som økonomien voksede, faldt statsgælden som en procentdel af den.
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.
Måske det vigtigste er, at regeringen øgede almindelige arbejderes forhandlingsindsats. De var sikret retten til at tilslutte sig fagforeninger, som arbejdsgiverne skulle forhandle med i god tro. I midten af 1950'erne var mere end en tredjedel af alle amerikanske arbejdere i den private sektor fagforbundet. Og fagforeningerne krævede og modtog et rimeligt stykke af den amerikanske tærte. Ikke-organiserede virksomheder, der frygtede, at deres arbejdere ellers ville ønske en fagforening, tilbød lignende aftaler.
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.
Regeringen sponsorerede amerikanske familiers drømme om at eje deres eget hjem ved at give billige realkreditlån og rentefradrag på afdrag på realkreditlån. I mange dele af landet støttede regeringen elektricitet og vand for at gøre sådanne hjem beboelige. Og det byggede de veje og motorveje, der forbandt boligerne med store kommercielle centre.
Regeringen udvidede også adgangen til videregående uddannelse. GI Bill betalte college-omkostninger for dem, der vendte tilbage fra krig. Udvidelsen af offentlige universiteter gjorde højere uddannelse overkommelig for den amerikanske middelklasse.
Regeringen betalte for alt dette med skatteindtægter fra en voksende middelklasse med stigende indkomster. Indtægterne blev også løftet af dem, der lå øverst på indkomststigen, hvis marginalskatter var langt højere. Den højeste marginale indkomstskattesats under Anden Verdenskrig var over 68 procent. I 1950'erne steg det til 91 procent under Dwight Eisenhower, som få ville kalde en radikal. I 1960'erne og 1970'erne var den højeste marginalsats omkring 70 procent. Selv efter at have udnyttet alle mulige fradrag og kreditter, betalte den typiske højindkomstskatteyder en marginal føderal skat på over 50 procent. Men i modsætning til hvad konservative kommentatorer havde forudsagt, reducerede de høje skattesatser ikke den økonomiske vækst. Tværtimod gjorde de det muligt for nationen at udvide middelklassens velstand og brænde væksten.
Middelklassens Squeeze, 1977-2007
During the Great Prosperity of 1947-1977, the basic bargain had ensured that the pay of American workers coincided with their output. In effect, the vast middle class received an increasing share of the benefits of economic growth. But after that point, the two lines began to diverge: Output per hour – a measure of productivity – continued to rise. But real hourly compensation was left in the dust.
It's easy to blame "globalization" for the stagnation of middle incomes, but technological advances have played as much if not a greater role. Factories remaining in the United States have shed workers as they automated. So has the service sector.
Men i modsætning til populær mytologi har handel og teknologi ikke reduceret det samlede antal amerikanske jobs. Deres mere dybtgående effekt har været på lønnen. I stedet for at være uden arbejde har de fleste amerikanere stille og roligt nøjes med lavere realløn eller lønninger, der er steget langsommere end den samlede vækst i økonomien pr. person. Selvom arbejdsløsheden efter den store recession fortsat er høj, vender jobs langsomt tilbage. Men for at få dem må mange arbejdere acceptere lavere løn end tidligere.
For mere end tre årtier siden begyndte handel og teknologi at skabe en kile mellem indtjeningen for folk i toppen og alle andre. Lønnen til velforbundne kandidater fra prestigefyldte colleges og MBA-programmer er steget kraftigt. Men lønnen og ydelserne for de fleste andre arbejdere er enten blevet fladet eller faldet. Og den efterfølgende opdeling har også gjort de fleste amerikanske middelklassefamilier mindre økonomisk sikre.
Government could have enforced the basic bargain. But it did the opposite. It slashed public goods and investments – whacking school budgets, increasing the cost of public higher education, reducing job training, cutting public transportation and allowing bridges, ports and highways to corrode.
It shredded safety nets – reducing aid to jobless families with children, tightening eligibility for food stamps, and cutting unemployment insurance so much that by 2007 only 40 percent of the unemployed were covered. It halved the top income tax rate from the range of 70 to 90 percent that prevailed during the Great Prosperity to 28 to 35 percent; allowed many of the nation's rich to treat their income as capital gains subject to no more than 15 percent tax; and shrunk inheritance taxes that affected only the top-most 1.5 percent of earners. Yet at the same time, America boosted sales and payroll taxes, both of which took a bigger chunk out of the pay the middle class and the poor than of the well off.
Hvordan Amerika blev ved med at købe: Tre mestringsmekanismer
Coping mechanism No. 1: Women move into paid work. Starting in the late 1970s, and escalating in the 1980s and 1990s, women went into paid work in greater and greater numbers. For the relatively small sliver of women with four-year college degrees, this was the natural consequence of wider educational opportunities and new laws against gender discrimination that opened professions to well-educated women. But the vast majority of women who migrated into paid work did so in order to prop up family incomes as households were hit by the stagnant or declining wages of male workers.
This transition of women into paid work has been one of the most important social and economic changes to occur over the last four decades. In 1966, 20 percent of mothers with young children worked outside the home. By the late 1990s, the proportion had risen to 60 percent. For married women with children under the age of 6, the transformation has been even more dramatic – from 12 percent in the 1960s to 55 percent by the late 1990s.
Coping mechanism No. 2: Everyone works longer hours. By the mid 2000s it was not uncommon for men to work more than 60 hours a week and women to work more than 50. A growing number of people took on two or three jobs. All told, by the 2000s, the typical American worker worked more than 2,200 hours a year – 350 hours more than the average European worked, more hours even than the typically industrious Japanese put in. It was many more hours than the typical American middle-class family had worked in 1979 – 500 hours longer, a full 12 weeks more.
Coping mechanism No. 3: Draw down savings and borrow to the hilt. After exhausting the first two coping mechanisms, the only way Americans could keep consuming as before was to save less and go deeper into debt. During the Great Prosperity the American middle class saved about 9 percent of their after-tax incomes each year. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, that portion had been whittled down to about 7 percent. The savings rate then dropped to 6 percent in 1994, and on down to 3 percent in 1999. By 2008, Americans saved nothing. Meanwhile, household debt exploded. By 2007, the typical American owed 138 percent of their after-tax income.
Udfordringen for fremtiden
Alle tre mestringsmekanismer er udtømt. Den grundlæggende økonomiske udfordring forude er at genoprette den enorme amerikanske middelklasse.
That requires resurrecting the basic bargain linking wages to overall gains, and providing the middle class a share of economic gains sufficient to allow them to purchase more of what the economy can produce. As we should have learned from the Great Prosperity – the 30 years after World War II when America grew because most Americans shared in the nation's prosperity – we cannot have a growing and vibrant economy without a growing and vibrant middle class.
(This is excerpted from my testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, on May 12. It is also drawn from my recent book, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future.)
Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, Supercapitalism, and his most recent book, Aftershock.
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