alt Hacker NewsActually real wages have increased a lot since the 70s if you count employer contributions to employee heath insurance. The problem is that a lot of that money is being wasted by an inefficient healthcare system, and employers probably shouldn't even be involved in sponsoring group health plans in the first place.
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mrguyorama • last Monday at 7:02 PM
>if you count employer contributions to employee heath insurance
You shouldn't.
>and employers probably shouldn't even be involved in sponsoring group health plans in the first place.
They are free to lobby for socialized medicine, but they don't because they like how the current system helps lock employees into bad jobs for any amount of healthcare.
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Employers paid for healthcare in 1970s too, and even for higher percentages of the workforce. If there is a premium inflation surpassed the CPI, that is still inflation, not real growth. If there’s an inflation problem in delivering a temporally comparable service, that is not a “real wage” item for the employee [1]. So what the nominal figure today shouldn’t be relevant.
I agree it shouldn’t be an employer item too, but whatever employers lose on premiums, they get more on an overall stickier and cheaper labor supply.
[1] one could argue the productivity of healthcare increased, and the data indeed supports this with the overall life expectancy increase from 70s to now mid 70s plus quality of life treatments. But again most of the spend is actually on the tail end at this age group, which raises the workers’ premium without delivering the benefit. Therefore not much structural gain for the actual working age employee.