TY  - JOUR
AU  - Feldstein,Martin S.
TI  - Did Wages Reflect Growth in Productivity?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13953
PY  - 2008
Y2  - April 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13953
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13953.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Martin S. Feldstein
President Emeritus
NBER
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02138-5398
Tel: 617/868-3905
Fax: 617/868-7194
E-Mail: msfeldst@nber.org
AB  - The level of productivity doubled in the U.S. nonfarm business sector between 1970 and 2006.  Wages, or more accurately total compensation per hour, increased at approximately the same annual rate during that period if  nominal compensation is adjusted for inflation in the same way as the nominal output measure that is used to calculate productivity.  

Total employee compensation as a share of national income was 66 percent of national income in 1970 and 64 percent in 2006. This measure of the labor  compensation share has been remarkably stable since the 1970s.  It rose from an average of 62 percent in the decade of the 1960s to 66 percent in the decades of the 1970s and 1980s and then declined to 65 percent in the decade of the 1990s where it has again been  from 2000 until the most recent quarter.
ER  -