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La participación de los salarios

 (spanish; en Seminari Taifa, Informes de economía No. 4: “Hay pobres porque hay muy, muy ricos”.

First, the primary distribution between salaries and capital income is analysed for Spain. In the three decades since mid of the 1970ies there has been a massive and continued redistribution in favour of capital income and in detriment of the salaries. Real wages are practically stagnating since 1980. In spite of the technological progress in the last 25 years, the total hours worked in the formal economy have increased, and families are dedicating still more than 56% of their income for covering basic needs.

In a second part data for differences among different groups of employees are presented. The group of 10% with highest salaries are receiving 25% of the total salaries. In the middle ranges there is a tendency towards homogeneisation, while there is an increasing share of precarious workers with very low wages.

Distribución de la renta – 10 años después

(spanish)

The analysis of the long-term evolution of income distribution, real wages and productivity from the study from 2006 is repeated ten years after, and beyond Spain extended to France, Germany, Italy and the EU-15 (Western Europe). For Spain, the decreasing wage share is continuing, while for the other countries and the EU15 as a whole the wage share is stagnating at the low levels of 60 – 65 % obtained or inverting tendency to a slight increase as an effect of the 2008-crisis. An increase of productivity from 1980 to 2014 of 43% contrasts with a comparatively low increase of real salaries of 22%.

As a structural change can be noted, that while in 1980 most of capital income went into gross investment, in 2012 there was a high share of capital income of 10 – 15 % of GDP (except for France with a lower value of 5,1%) which was not invested.

The evolution of income distribution is analysed using the Gini-coefficient of income for disposable income and the share of the upper 10%, 1% and 0,1% as indicators. Inequality measured as the share of the upper 10% is strongly increasing since the 1980ies in Germany and Italy, while the increase is modest in France and even decreasing (from a relatively high initial level) in Spain. In all countries there is a strong increase of the share of the upper 1% and 0,1%, with specially both high levels and increasing tendency towards more inequality in Germany

zamheifa fact sheet 01

Primary distribution of income 1960 - 2024

(english)

Macroeconomic data for four countries: Germany, Spain, France and Italy have been analysed for the the 65 year period from 1960 to 2024 with respect to primary distribution of income, the use of the surplus for investment and the evolution of real wages and productivity.

There has been a strong redistribution from labour income to capital income amounting to from 8 to 11 % of GDP in all four countries in about two decades from about 1980 to 2000. Since then and throughout the first quarter of the 21st century the wage share remains rather constant at the low level obtained of between 61 and 66% of GDP, depending on the country, with some country specific variations in tendency since the 2008 financial crisis.

There is an increased share of profits in all four countries which is not re-invested. The difference in this share from historic minima in the 1970ies to the average after the 2008 financial crises ranges from 7 to 19% of GDP. The ratio of gross investment to total domestic surplus is decreasing in all four countries from ratios around 70% in the 1970ies to current values of around 45 %.

As a consequence, after a strong decrease throughout the 1970ies and 1980ies productivity growth has reached values well below 1%/year in the first quarter of the 21st century, being even negative in Italy in recent years. Since the onset of the neoliberal era from 1980 real wage growth decayed to values below 1%/year, and in Italy and Spain real wages are practically stagnating since 1990.