GoKawiil
Tech News
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that workers' share of national income fell to 52.8% in the second quarter of 2026, the lowest level since records began in 1947, down from 53.6% the prior quarter. The decline comes even as Fortune 500 profits hit a record $2.1 trillion in 2025 and GDP grew 3.4%, while job growth slowed sharply and unemployment rose to 4.2% in September.
An analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by journalist Joseph Politano found the US has lost more than 200,000 jobs in creative industries over the past four years, with nearly 50,000 of those losses in the last year alone. The steepest declines hit digital fields like graphic design, broadcasting, publishing, film and sound recording, while museum and performing-arts jobs grew even as independent-artist employment fell sharply.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest consumer price index shows grocery costs climbed 2.7% between August 2025 and August 2026. Over a longer stretch, the same basket of food items now costs 33% more than it did in August 2019, reflecting a sustained multi-year rise in food expenses.
Fresh government data show U.S. wage growth trailing inflation, with the Employment Cost Index revealing a 0.4% year-over-year drop in real wages and salaries through June. Meanwhile, labor's share of nonfarm business income hit a record low of 52.8% in the second quarter, prompting economists to ask whether AI is beginning to squeeze pay even before it eliminates jobs outright. Research from Apollo Global Management suggests workers in AI-exposed occupations are already seeing slower real-wage gains.
A Wall Street Journal report cites experts recommending anthropology, mathematics and philosophy as college majors better suited to an AI-driven job market than computer science, whose recent graduates face a 6.1% unemployment rate versus a 5.7% overall rate. The experts argue these fields build distinctly human skills—like understanding behavior and abstract reasoning—that AI cannot easily replicate, even as long-term demand for software developers remains strong.
The Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) has developed the True Rate of Unemployment, a metric built from Bureau of Labor Statistics data that counts people without full-time work, those earning below a living wage of roughly $26,000 a year, and those with no job at all. The measure aims to give a fuller picture of financial hardship than the official unemployment rate captures.