Distortions

Russell Roberts produced a Post which left me a little puzzled. It was a Critique of a NYTimes article this morning which I included in the previous Post I delivered today. It must be admitted it was a poorly framed article, but did not deserve the heat which Roberts expressed. It disturbed me further that Tyler Cowan linked to the Roberts' Post.

Everything Roberts claimed was fundamentally True, but his refutation of the Times article was also set to deceive. It becomes apparent in the listed questions which he makes:
1. Why would you use a measure of compensation that ignores benefits, an increasingly important form of compensation?
2. Why would you use 2003 as your starting point when the recession ended in November of 2001?
3. There are no government series that I know of on median earnings. Where did those data come from?

Benefits could be ignored in the Context that such awards channel to other Business concerns, while Employees face ever increasing Living Costs while their Take-Home Pay remains relatively stagnant. It is relevant that the Business Concerns accepting payment for those Benefits express no hesitation in raising Charges because of incipient Inflation. This stands as the vital reason why Business shows reluctance to maintain those self-same Benefits. Use of median earnings cancels out the Advanced Skills Labor who have kept ahead of the Inflation rate in their Wages, but who are in the distinct Minority of Total Employed. I am also quite sure Roberts would derive approximately the same Numbers as attained by the Economic Policy Institute, no matter the agenda of the EPI, if he cared to check on median earnings.

Roberts states:
Both of these claims are puzzling. The first claim, about labor's share of the pie ignores benefits. As I have mentioned here before--the standard claims you hear about labor's share declining come from using wages without other forms of compensation. When you include benefits, labor's share is virtually a constant at 70% of national income and has been steady since the end of World War II, . . .

Is this Statement relatively True? The news on Local Stations tonight is about Good Year cancelling Health Care coverage for Retirees. This sounds like Compensation granted in previous Years has been denied by Business Concerns, even though specifically granted by Union Contract in previous years. What does this do to the rate of Compensation to Workers? A singular Incident would be hardly noteworthy, but Business Concerns have been cancelling Health Care and Pension benefits all over the Country. It also leads to a rather thorny problem as well, which I am sure Our Republican administration has not considered: If Business Concerns were granted Tax Reductions from expressed Benefits provisions, what is the proper Tax burden which should be assessed for noncompliance? lgl