On the bright side, the Q1 2011 Gross Domestic Income, GDI, report does show that we're seeing a rebound in wage and salary accruals. The problem is, that corporate profits are slowing. (GDI is the income side of the BEA's GDP release and you can download the data here.)
READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP!
The chart illustrates annual domestic profit and wage/salary growth spanning 1981 Q1 to 2011 Q1. The series are deflated by the GDP price index. Real domestic profit growth has been robust, peaking at 65% Yr/Yr in Q4 2009 and decelerating to 7% in Q1 2011. The surge in corporate profits brought real wage and salary accruals growth to a 2.1% annual pace in Q1 2011.
With higher input costs and slowing productivity gains, domestic profit margins are likely to be squeezed unless demand re-emerges smartly. The implication is that real wage and salary accruals growth may be nearing 'as good as it gets' territory during the aftermath of a balance sheet recession.
And labor's losing it's share of the pie. The chart below illustrates the various component contributions to annual gross domestic income growth. (the best that I could do on size vs. clarity - click to enlarge)
The data are quarterly data spanning 1981 Q1 to 2011 Q1 and deflated by the GDP price index. Wage and salary accruals have become a smaller part of income growth in the last decade. Spanning 1981-2000, the average contribution to income growth from wage and salary accruals was 1.5% (simple average), where that spanning the years 2001-current was just 0.3%. The average corporate profit contribution held firm over the same two periods, roughly 0.3%.Growth momentum has slowed over the period, however, the deceleration in wage and salary contribution is quite striking. I can't explain it even with the 'demographic shift'; but this trend is likewise reflected in the employment to population ratio.
Wages, income, spending power, consumption, saving - they're all different ways to say the same thing: earned income can be spent in one of three ways, on taxes, consumption, or saving. And in this recovery, saving via income gains is important as households further deleverage. We can't afford compensationless expansion.
The key to growth in 2011 and 2012 is wages, salaries, and income - here's to hoping.
Rebecca Wilder
Update: Spencer has a foreboding point in comments from my earlier post on GDP. He notes that inflation measured by the GDP deflator probably understates the impetus to domestic prices - domestic purchases is more appropriate at a 3.8% annual rate. The implication, according to Spencer via Email is, "If the inflation rate is really 3.8%, not 1.9 %, it strongly implies that the dominant cause of the economic weakness is higher inflation, not supply chain disruptions."
