Saturday, September 15, 2012

The Auto Industry And Labor Productivity

General Motors had $150.28 billion in revenues in 2011. General Motors has 202,000 employees. That's $743,960 revenue per employee. As David Leonhardt wrote, "The average GM, Ford and Chrysler worker receives compensation – wages, bonuses, overtime and paid time off – of about $40 an hour. Add in benefits such as health insurance and pensions and you get to about $55." If we use this $55 per hour number (for total compensation), which would gross roughly $114K per year, the typical GM worker only receives 16 percent of his revenue productivity.

People complain about taxes. But this is a direct example of how labor is taxed. In this case, at 84 percent! (And Republicans complain about 30, 20, and even 10 percent taxation?)

2011 Ford Revenues: $136.26 billion.
2011 Ford Employees: 164,000.
2011 Ford Revenue Per Employee: $830,854.
Labor Tax: 84%

2011 Chrysler Revenues: $55 billion.
2011 Chrysler Employees: 51,623.
2011 Chrysler Revenue Per Employee: $1,065,416.
Labor Tax: 89%.

Seeing as how the Republicans are so concerned with the average Joe and fair taxation, I know we'll be hearing from them any minute now about how we must obtain more just compensation for our auto workers.

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