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April 5, 2017
Matt Stoller wrote for Vice about how corporate concentration has meant a decline in most workers' wages.
Now, because of elevated recent interest in corporate power, experts are coming up with data showing just what it's costing Americans. And last week, economist Simcha Barkai presented his recent paper at a conference at the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago, suggesting corporate concentration leads to substantial declines in money going to workers across the country.
According to the paper, there's been roughly a 10 percent decline in what's known as "labor share" over the past 30 years. (Barkai's paper looked at the non-financial corporate sector, which encompasses roughly 80 million workers.) What this means is that out of the total number of goods and services produced by corporations, less of it by percentage terms (10 percent less) is going to pay for salaries and benefits—a.k.a. income.