The United States is experiencing an investment boom from AI and the infrastructure that makes it possible — but much of those economic gains aren't reaching workers.
Why it matters: Job openings have become scarce and workers' wages are no longer rising that rapidly.
The big picture: That disconnect between strong growth and comparatively anemic results for workers may sound like a unique challenge of 2026, but in fact, it is part of a longer-run phenomenon.
- Since the 1980s, the share of national income accruing to labor has fallen markedly, and the share going to capital has risen.
- There are technological and structural reasons for this, which the current AI boom looks poised to exacerbate.
- The lopsided distribution of the economic pie helps explain why public opinion on the economy has remained in the toilet despite decent overall data — and why surveys point to Americans being pessimistic about the job market ahead.
What they're saying: "The divergence between capital and labor helps explain the disconnect between a buoyant economy and pessimistic households," writes the Wall Street Journal's ace economic columnist Greg Ip.
- "It will also play an outsize role in where the economy goes from here."
By the numbers: As Ip points out, the share of gross domestic income going to employees' wages and benefits was 51.4% in the third quarter, down from 58% in 1980.
- Over the same span, the share of income going to corporate profits rose from 7.2% to 11.7%.
- If labor were to return to its 1980 share, it would mean an extra $2 trillion in annual compensation — an average of $12,000 a year for each employed American.
Flashback: The shift over the last several decades involves many factors.
- Technological change is part of it. Forty years ago, an auto factory had scores of workers manually attaching parts to a car. Now robots do most of the heavy lifting and factory floors are comparatively sparse.
- That means more of the economic returns for selling a car go to owners of those robots — namely auto company shareholders —‚as opposed to taking the form of workers' wages.
- Shifts in workers' power — particularly with the decline of private-sector unions — are likely a factor as well, as is the rise of globalization and foreign outsourcing that gives companies more leverage to keep a lid on pay and benefits.
Yes, but: There's a case to be made that it was the business investment that generated the productivity that made higher incomes for workers possible.
- In this telling, the economic pie is so much bigger that workers are still better off even if their slice represents a smaller share of the total.
- Inflation-adjusted median household income, for example, was $23,00 higher in 2024 than in 1984 — a 39% rise.
What's next: The AI boom threatens to turbocharge that long-term trend. Data centers may reflect billions of dollars of investment while providing ongoing employment for a comparative handful of workers.
- Meanwhile, AI stands to make it possible for more white-collar work to be done by machines and software programs, much as robotics and similar advances displaced factory work a generation ago.
The bottom line: Americans are showing discontent with the current precarious economic balance, and the divvying-up of the national income helps explain why.
