Hacker News Reader

Comment by ohthatsnotright | Hacker News Reader

What a strange thing to ask for a citation on when CEO pay, stock buy backs and corporate dividends are at all time highs while worker pay and honestly just affording to live continue to crater.

View on HN

Productivity is up and labor wages are up. That’s why I asked. It wasn’t an attempt at a rebuttal it was a request for reading material as it’s a heterodox view.

The normal conversation is that productivity growth has slowed and the divide has increased, not that more productivity creates lower outcomes in real terms.

https://www.bls.gov/productivity/images/labor-compensation-l...

What is 'real hourly compensation'?

It's economic jargon for what people are paid per hour for working (which can include non-direct payments such as healthcare and pensions), adjusted for inflation (for economists, "real" just means divided by CPI, as opposed to "nominal" which are the actual dollar amounts in the past).

Data is collected through the National Compensation Survey: https://www.bls.gov/respondents/ncs/

I mean, I hate a lazy "citation needed" FUD attack as much as (really likely way more than) anyone, but with a bit more context I do think a citation is needed, as the correct citation in the other direction is (as someone else noted) Jevon's paradox: when you make it easier to X, you make it so people can use X in ever more contexts, and you make it so that the things which previously needed something way harder than X are suddenly possible, and the result -- as much in software development as any other field: it seems like every year it becomes MUCH easier to do things, due to better tools -- always seems to result in MORE demand, not less... we even see the slow raising of "table stakes" for software, such that a website or app is off-putting and lame to a lot of users if it isn't doing the things that require at least some effort: instead of animated transitions and giant images maybe the next phase of this is that the website has to be an interactive assistant white-glove AI experience--or some crazy AR-capable thing--requiring tons of engineering effort to pull off, but now possible for your average website due to AI coding. Meanwhile, the other effects you are talking about all started before AI coding even sort of worked well, and so have very little to do with AI: they are more related to monetary policy shifts, temporary pandemic demand spikes, and that R&D tax law change.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com