[dude1394]

This guys is doing something interesting. Instead of just wage increases he also adds in benefits increases to come to a slightly different conclusion about rising wages.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=090106B

In the Times piece, "Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity," reporters Steven Greenhouse and David Leonhardt give the impression that workers are somehow doing worse and getting a raw deal from employers. Errors in the Times piece make the reporters' case appear stronger than it really is. But the even bigger problem is that the data are presented in a way that will surely leave an incorrect impression in their readers' minds. Indeed, their article is a model of how to write a news story to mislead your reader or, alternatively, a model of how not to write a news story if you want to inform your reader.

The basic message Greenhouse and Leonhardt deliver is that "wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960's." That is literally correct, according to the federal government's measures. But it's also misleading, for two main reasons, in order of importance.

First, as marginal tax rates have increased for most people except the highest-income people, due mainly to rising Medicare and Social Security tax rates over the last 40 years, employers have paid a higher and higher percent of compensation in the form of untaxed benefits. So a more-relevant measure is not wages and salaries but total employee compensation. Second, national income is a better base to use for considering each group's -- employees, corporations, proprietors, landlords, and lenders -- share of income.