Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Labor's share of US income sits at a post-war low, off 1.6 points from pre-COVID after holding flat through the 2010s. The New York Fed asked if the drop signals something new and answered no: it tracks past recessions and comes from within industries, not work shifting between them.

One reader called the title sensationalist and quoted the paper's own no. Another argued the metric is partly a tax-law mirage: doctors and lawyers who once drew a W-2 salary now bill through one-person corporations, so their pay counts as capital, not labor.