Productivity vs. real compensation
This chart compares U.S. nonfarm-business productivity with real compensation per hour since 1948. It uses BLS series via FRED and independently indexes both to the same starting point; the divergence is descriptive and does not by itself identify technology, bargaining power, composition, or any other cause.
The original idea: Typical worker compensation stopped rising in step with economy-wide productivity. Read the original ↗ · Plain-language overview ↗
What does it show?
Productivity has risen much faster than real hourly compensation since the early 1970s.
Methodology
BLS nonfarm-business output per hour (OPHNFB) and real compensation per hour (COMPRNFB), quarterly and seasonally adjusted via FRED. Each series is independently rebased to its first common 1948 observation = 100. Every second observation is retained for display, plus the latest; the chart compares cumulative index growth, not dollar levels or a causal decomposition.