Amazon workers on food stamps have tripled despite its record revenue—and it’s just the latest evidence of the new economy of shrinking labor shares

Amazon workers hold a large black sign that reads, "Amazon, We're humans, Not robots." (Credit: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg—Getty Images)

The U.S. workforce has just made the type of history it likely wishes it didn’t. Working Americans are taking home the smallest percentage of economic output, 52.8%, since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the metric in 1947.

But as the share of wealth workers take home through wages—called labor share—is shrinking, corporate profits have exploded, with the S&P 500 index gaining 600% since the beginning of the century, while wages have increased just 12.5% over the same period, adjusted for inflation.