Cumulative change in total economy productivity and real hourly compensation of production/nonsupervisory workers, 1948–2011

Note: Data are for compensation of production/nonsupervisory workers in the private sector and productivity of the total economy.

Source: Authors' analysis of unpublished Total Economy Productivity data from Bureau of Labor Statistics Labor Productivity and Costs program, wage data from BLS Current Employment Statistics program, and Bureau of Economic Analysis National Income and Product Accounts

Documentation and methodology

Productivity is based on unpublished Total Economy Productivity data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Labor Productivity and Costs program. Hourly compensation for production/nonsupervisory workers is based on the wage data series used in Table 4.3. Wages are converted to hourly compensation by scaling by the real compensation/wage ratio from the NIPA data used in Table 4.2.