U.S. workers took home their smallest share of capital since at least 1947

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As corporate earnings soar and U.S. GDP balloons, the American workforce isn’t feeling the same boom. American workers are taking home less of the country’s overall income, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows, and employment in the U.S. is set to continue to slow.

随着企业盈利飙升和美国国内生产总值（GDP）膨胀，美国劳动力市场并未感受到同样的繁荣。美国劳工统计局的数据显示，美国工人的收入占全国总收入的份额正在减少，且美国的就业增长预计将持续放缓。

Labor share, or the portion of the U.S.’s economic output that workers receive through salary and wages, decreased to 52.8% in the second quarter of 2026, its lowest level since the BLS started recording this data in 1947, according to its labor productivity and costs report. In the previous quarter, labor share was at 53.6%. This decade, the labor share average was about 55.6%.

根据劳工统计局发布的劳动生产率和成本报告，劳动份额（即工人通过薪水和工资获得的美国经济产出比例）在2026年第二季度降至52.8%，为该局自1947年开始记录此数据以来的最低水平。上一季度，劳动份额为53.6%。本十年的平均劳动份额约为55.6%。

That’s despite corporate earnings skyrocketing, with profits for Fortune 500 companies hitting a record $2.1 trillion in 2025. The U.S. GDP grew 3.4% in the third quarter last year, exceeding economists’ predictions.

尽管企业盈利飞速增长，财富500强企业的利润在2025年达到创纪录的2.1万亿美元，但情况依然如此。去年第三季度美国GDP增长了3.4%，超过了经济学家的预测。

That growth has not only come at the expense of how much of the pie of wealth workers are taking home, but also how many Americans are in the workforce, economists warn.

经济学家警告称，这种增长不仅是以牺牲工人所能分得的财富份额为代价，还影响了美国劳动力的规模。

“That decline in the share of labor has got to be either falling earnings or falling numbers of people,” Raymond Robertson, a labor economist at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government, told Fortune. “The falling share of income is having to do with the shift towards capital.”

德克萨斯农工大学布什政府学院的劳动经济学家雷蒙德·罗伯逊（Raymond Robertson）告诉《财富》杂志：“劳动份额的下降必然意味着收入减少或就业人数减少。收入份额的下降与向资本倾斜的转变有关。”

Indeed, there are growing signs that as national income balloons, the U.S. workforce is deflating. Unemployment ticked up to 4.2% in September, and employers added just 584,000 jobs in 2025 compared to 2 million added in 2024. The U.S. added 29,000 jobs in September, about one-third of economists’ projections.

事实上，越来越多的迹象表明，随着国民收入的膨胀，美国劳动力市场正在萎缩。9月份失业率升至4.2%，2025年雇主仅增加了58.4万个就业岗位，而2024年增加了200万个。美国9月份增加了2.9万个就业岗位，仅为经济学家预测的三分之一左右。

The bifurcation of corporate victories and weak labor data raises concerns among economists of jobless growth jeopardizing the U.S. workforce, as well as a K-shaped economy, where the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, becoming more exaggerated.

企业盈利与疲软的劳动力数据之间的分歧引起了经济学家的担忧，他们担心这种“无就业增长”会危及美国劳动力市场，并使“K型经济”（即富者愈富、贫者愈贫）变得更加极端。

“Data right now is very mixed,” Robertson said. “But I think it also all consistently points to this idea that things are getting worse for workers and much better for billionaires.”

罗伯逊说：“目前的数据非常复杂。但我认为，所有数据都一致指向一个观点，即工人的处境正在恶化，而亿万富翁的处境却好得多。”

Robertson attributes weakening labor share averages to the rise in automation, which he noted is displacing workers, with productivity—a metric essentially measuring worker output—continuing to rise. Second-quarter GDP data showed nonfarm productivity growth grew 1.4% last quarter, though the rate has slowed from 2.2% in the same quarter a year ago.

罗伯逊将劳动份额平均值的下降归因于自动化的兴起。他指出，自动化正在取代工人，而衡量工人产出的指标——生产率——却在持续上升。第二季度GDP数据显示，上季度非农生产率增长了1.4%，尽管这一增速较去年同期2.2%的水平有所放缓。

“All these things, bit by bit, are replacing people, and they’re concentrating income and their share of capital,” he said.

他说：“所有这些因素都在一点一点地取代人类，它们正在集中收入和资本份额。”

Goldman Sachs analysts Joseph Briggs and Sarah Dong estimated in a report, based on Department of Labor job numbers, that AI automation could displace 25% of all work hours. They predicted that over the course of the AI adoption period, a 15% increase in AI-driven productivity would displace 6% to 7% of jobs, and, at its peak, a 1 million increase in unemployed workers, though job displacement as a result of AI has not shown up meaningfully in any economic data.

高盛分析师约瑟夫·布里格斯（Joseph Briggs）和莎拉·董（Sarah Dong）根据劳工部的就业数据在报告中估计，人工智能自动化可能会取代25%的总工时。他们预测，在人工智能采用期间，人工智能驱动的生产率提高15%将导致6%至7%的岗位被取代，在高峰期，失业人数将增加100万，尽管人工智能导致的岗位流失尚未在任何经济数据中显著体现。

The displacement could be substantial, the analysts said, but said the impacts of automation will be tempered by a wealth of new jobs created as a result of the technological changes.

分析师表示，这种取代可能是巨大的，但自动化带来的影响将被技术变革所创造的大量新工作岗位所缓解。

Automation is expected to be a boon to corporate profits and GDP, projected to boost GDP by 1.5% by 2035, according to a Wharton brief published in September 2025. Early signs indicate AI could drive productivity gains, with around 80% of employees reporting AI makes them faster at specific tasks, but only 37% of companies seeing an impact of that productivity on operating profits, according to McKinsey data, and AI operating costs continue to constrain its deployment.

根据沃顿商学院2025年9月发布的一份简报，自动化预计将成为企业利润和GDP的福音，预计到2035年将推动GDP增长1.5%。早期迹象表明，人工智能可以推动生产率提高，约80%的员工表示人工智能使他们在特定任务上更快，但根据麦肯锡的数据，只有37%的公司看到这种生产率对营业利润的影响，且人工智能的运营成本持续限制其部署。

Robertson added that growing unemployment, which he expects to see rise over the next few months, keeps wages down, allowing margins and profits to expand.

罗伯逊补充说，不断上升的失业率（他预计未来几个月还会上升）压低了工资水平，从而使利润率和利润得以扩大。

To be sure, the recent productivity surge has been an “open question,” Morgan Stanley economists have argued, not unanimously attributed to increased adoption of AI or automation. The analysts suggested this increase would be cyclical, or vestiges of pandemic-era habits of companies making more from less.

诚然，摩根士丹利的经济学家认为，最近的生产率激增是一个“悬而未决的问题”，并非一致归因于人工智能或自动化的普及。分析师认为，这种增长可能是周期性的，或者是疫情时期企业“以少做多”习惯的残留。

An Oxford Economists research brief from earlier this year suggested companies are disguising overhiring-related layoffs as a result of AI, but said automation-related workforce reductions have not yet happened en masse. Additionally, while unemployment has been ticking up over the past year, it is still relatively low.

牛津经济研究院今年早些时候的一份研究简报指出，企业正在将与过度招聘相关的裁员伪装成人工智能带来的结果，但表示与自动化相关的裁员尚未大规模发生。此外，尽管过去一年失业率一直在上升，但仍处于相对较低的水平。

Mark Regets, senior fellow at National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), sees a different reason for a slowing workforce. He told Fortune President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has not done what Trump administration officials, such as White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, said it would in increasing the number of U.S.-born workers. Instead, according to Regets, Trump’s immigration policies have not only decimated the foreign-born workforce, but has also created fewer opportunities for domestic-born workers to find jobs.

美国国家政策基金会（NFAP）高级研究员马克·雷格茨（Mark Regets）对劳动力增长放缓的原因有不同的看法。他告诉《财富》杂志，唐纳德·特朗普总统的移民打击行动并没有像白宫副幕僚长斯蒂芬·米勒（Stephen Miller）等特朗普政府官员所说的那样，增加美国本土出生工人的数量。相反，据雷格茨称，特朗普的移民政策不仅摧毁了外籍劳动力，还减少了本土出生工人寻找工作的机会。

NFAP data shows a 1.1 million to 1.4 million-person reduction in the foreign-born workforce since January 2025, consistent with the Congressional Budget Office’s report last year indicating shrinking U.S. population growth as a result of migrants being deported or refusing to come to the U.S. out of fear of hostile policies.

NFAP数据显示，自2025年1月以来，外籍劳动力减少了110万至140万人，这与国会预算办公室去年的报告一致，该报告指出，由于移民被驱逐出境或因恐惧敌对政策而拒绝来美，美国人口增长正在萎缩。

“The data is raising huge red flags that we are losing immigrants of all types that we otherwise would be advancing America’s economy,” Regets said.

雷格茨说：“这些数据发出了巨大的危险信号，表明我们正在失去各种类型的移民，而他们本可以推动美国经济的发展。”

Recent BLS data is counter-evidence to Miller’s argument that harsher immigration policy would grow the U.S. workforce. The labor participation rate for foreign-born workers fell from 66.3% to 66% from September 2025 to September 2026, and labor participation for native-born workers has similarly fallen from 61.6% to 60.9% over the same period. Fewer immigrant workers may actually make it harder for U.S.-born individuals to find work.

劳工统计局最近的数据反驳了米勒关于更严厉的移民政策会增加美国劳动力的论点。从2025年9月到2026年9月，外籍工人的劳动参与率从66.3%降至66%，同期本土出生工人的劳动参与率也从61.6%降至60.9%。移民工人的减少实际上可能使美国本土出生的人更难找到工作。

“A company unable to find the workers it needs for some ro

“一家公司如果无法找到其所需的工人来从事某些工作……”