This morning on CNBC the productivity report came in- and it is up by a good 1.5%.  While this is good news for businesses.. I can’t help but think this is bad for the typical American worker.

Businesses continue to shed jobs…. so rising productivity only means that the people still employed are forced to do more work for the same amount of money.  Companies will pad their bottom line by pocketing the money saved by laying off employees, and the people that are left are too scared to complain or say anything- so they pick up the slack and do the work of 2 or 3 jobs.  I’ve seen this happen with every economic downturn.

The problem when productivity goes up during an economic downturn is that salaries hardly follow suit.  It’s well known that real wages over the past ten years have fallen when adjusted for inflation.  Companies are sucking more and more productivity out of the American worker without having to compensate for it.

It’s no wonder, then, that Americans are strapped with record high credit card debt- they aren’t making a fair wage for the work they do.  Heck, they’re making less than they were 10 years ago and doing more work- it’s no wonder they have to turn to credit cards to make ends meet.

It’s a sad state of affairs.  I think it is time that companies, big and small, start appreciating their employees more- and compensating them fairly!