[s73v3r_]

"Real wage increases tie to rising productivity."

Just about every graph on the subject demonstrates this statement to be false. Productivity has skyrocketed since the 70s, yet wages for all but the top have stagnated.

"Compare that to what the city officials in San Francisco are doing with waiters and similar restaurant staff. Essentially, they have decreed (in the name of worker protection) that the cost to the employer of such employees shall increase by 50% or more over a short period when nothing whatever has occurred to increase their productivity. I went years working my way through school doing such work and it is very hard work indeed. The people doing it earn every penny. Yet those who did it 5 years ago at considerably less cost to the employer than those who do it today worked just as hard as their counterparts today. If those doing such work today are doing the same work, and their productivity has not materially increased, yet they are getting paid 50% more, something has to give."

This is also being done because productivity is not the sole measure by which those wages should be judged. Cost of living absolutely should be taken into account.

[zach]

Productivity has skyrocketed since the 1970s in the durable-goods sector, but not so much in the rest of the economy: http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/tfp-and-great-sta...