Strong but we are all broke…
What’s a word for when everyone is laboring, but no one is getting paid?
Ideal productivity, under capitalism.
Normal people don’t care about “the economy”. To hell with the yachts. We care about working conditions and pay/benefits vs. cost of living.
A problem with the “labor market” is that it doesn’t exist. They’re simply measuring how many people are being used (aka un/employed). This is a measure of misery not something that we should target.
And the rise of “real wages” doesn’t really mean much if the inflation numbers are cooked (they are) and especially if people are still earning far less than a living wage.
We need meaningful metrics that represent progress for labor: % earning living wage, average vacation days, length of work week (4-days or less preferably), occupational safety, time wasted commuting, etc. These metrics might actually mean something.
Even worse, they’re measuring occupied jobs while ignoring that employers pay unsurvivable wages on part time jobs so everyone needs 2-3 to make ends meet.