The green line is total compensation and the blue line is wages only, the author chose the correct graph to support his point, but is lying by omission.
If I get paid 10 dollars a day to make widgets and I spend 1 dollar on a sandwich every day I make 9 dollars every day, if I get paid 9 dollars a day to make widgets and lunch is provided by my employer I make... 9 dollars every day, my situation is the same, and the green line does not move, but the blue line shows my wages have gone down by 10%.
The second graph is also very well chosen, it shows how much money corporation are making, and the author mentions that corporate profits are at an all time high! But corporate profits are almost always at an all time high, almost every point in the graph is an all time high, and if he had shown how much money, in total, was being paid in wages every year it would also be at an all time high, and almost every year would be an all time high. This is a direct consequence of the first graph (compensation is not falling wildly, if at all), and the fact that GDP in non-inflation-adjusted dollars is constantly going up.
If this is supposed to be any sort of evidence in support of his theory he might as well state that when GDP in unadjusted dollars goes up the social contract breaks, sounds like a tough problem to solve.
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Nice graph, here's the original:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/U.S._Compensa...
The green line is total compensation and the blue line is wages only, the author chose the correct graph to support his point, but is lying by omission.
If I get paid 10 dollars a day to make widgets and I spend 1 dollar on a sandwich every day I make 9 dollars every day, if I get paid 9 dollars a day to make widgets and lunch is provided by my employer I make... 9 dollars every day, my situation is the same, and the green line does not move, but the blue line shows my wages have gone down by 10%.
The second graph is also very well chosen, it shows how much money corporation are making, and the author mentions that corporate profits are at an all time high! But corporate profits are almost always at an all time high, almost every point in the graph is an all time high, and if he had shown how much money, in total, was being paid in wages every year it would also be at an all time high, and almost every year would be an all time high. This is a direct consequence of the first graph (compensation is not falling wildly, if at all), and the fact that GDP in non-inflation-adjusted dollars is constantly going up.
If this is supposed to be any sort of evidence in support of his theory he might as well state that when GDP in unadjusted dollars goes up the social contract breaks, sounds like a tough problem to solve.