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MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2026

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Business

The Viral 43% Wage Share Is Not a New Low: It Was 42.1% in 2025, Same as 2013

A chart claiming wages hit their lowest share of U.S. income since 1929 is topping Reddit. BEA's annual data shows a 9.5-point slide from 1970 to 2013, then a flat floor.

By Priya Kanth, Business & Economy

· 4 min read · Updated

Sliced rustic loaf of bread on a worn wooden cutting board with one slice set apart
Illustration: Trestlewire

Key Takeaways

  • •Wages and salaries took 42.1 percent of U.S. gross domestic income in 2025, tying 2013 as the lowest annual share in BEA's series that starts in 1929.
  • •The share fell from 51.6 percent in 1970 to 42.1 percent in 2013, and has ranged between 42.1 and 44.6 percent every year since 2010.
  • •Including employer benefits, total compensation was 50.9 percent of income in 2025, down from 58.4 percent in 1970, so the wage-only figure overstates the drop by 2 points.
  • •Wage and salary disbursements grew about 4.5 percent in the year to Q2 2026 while gross domestic income grew about 6.9 percent, so the share is still edging down.

The wage share of U.S. income was 42.1 percent in 2025, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data published through the St. Louis Fed's FRED database. That is the lowest annual reading in a series that starts in 1929, and it exactly ties 2013. A chart now sitting near the top of Reddit's r/Economics, with more than 17,000 upvotes, presents the number as a fresh collapse. The spreadsheet shows a long slide that ended a dozen years ago.

The short answer

Wages and salaries took 42.1 percent of gross domestic income in 2025, tying 2013 as the lowest reading in BEA's series, which starts in 1929. The share has stayed between 42.1 and 44.6 percent every year since 2010. Most of the drop came earlier, from 51.6 percent in 1970. Employer benefits grew as a slice, so total pay fell less than wages alone.

42.1%

Wages and salaries as a share of gross domestic income, 2025

Down from 51.6% in 1970. Ties the 2013 reading.

A long slide, then a flat floor

The viral headline, as Unusual Whales ran it, reads "US Wage Share Hits 43% of GDI, Lowest Since 1929." Moneywise, in an August 8 piece syndicated on Yahoo Finance, put the figure at roughly 43 percent for the first quarter of 2026. The quarterly table behind that number was not located for this story, so the annual BEA series is what can be checked here.

The annual series reads 51.6 percent in 1970, 46.7 percent in 2000 and 42.1 percent in 2013. That is 9.5 points gone in 43 years, split almost evenly: 4.9 points before 2000 and 4.6 after. Since 2010 the share has ranged from 42.1 to 44.6 percent. Only 2020 topped 44. The 2025 reading is a return to the floor, not a new low dug this year.

The 1929 starting point also misleads. The wage share that year was 48.6 percent, 6.5 points above today. "Lowest since 1929" really means lowest on record.

The Nixon explanation meets the data

Moneywise linked the decline to the August 15, 1971 end of dollar-gold convertibility, quoting former Representative Ron Paul calling that date "the turning point in the people's economic fortunes." The article added that timing does not prove cause. The series agrees on the caution. The wage share was 50.6 percent in 1971, 1.0 point below 1970, and 48.5 percent in 1979. The decline kept running until 2013, 42 years after the date Paul called the turning point.

What the wage-only number leaves out

Wages and salaries are one piece of pay. Total compensation of employees adds employer contributions for benefits and social insurance. On that wider measure the share fell from 58.4 percent in 1970 to 50.9 percent in 2025, a 7.5 point drop against 9.5 for wages alone. The gap between the two measures grew from 6.8 points to 8.8. Workers are getting more of their pay as benefits, and Moneywise made the same point: the wage-only figure does not mean pay was cut by more than half.

The wider measure still shows a decline. Its 2025 reading is 1.4 points above 1929, the lowest in that series at 49.5 percent. Both versions say labor's slice is near the bottom of the record.

Why rising pay and a falling share coexist

A share is a ratio. Moneywise cited Employment Cost Index data showing wages and salaries up 3.2 percent in the 12 months to June 2026. Wage and salary disbursements, a close cousin of the series above, rose about 4.5 percent from the second quarter of 2025 to the second quarter of 2026, from $12.93 trillion to $13.51 trillion at annual rates. Gross domestic income rose faster, about 6.9 percent, from $30.64 trillion to $32.75 trillion. Those growth rates are Trestlewire's arithmetic on FRED figures, and the two wage series use different definitions, so treat the gap as direction, not a precise estimate.

In dollar terms, GDI averaged about $30.9 trillion across the four quarters of 2025. Nine and a half points of that is roughly $2.9 trillion a year, the extra wage income the 1970 share would imply. That is arithmetic about how the pie is cut, not an estimate of lost pay, and it ignores the benefits shift above.

The data do not say who took the difference. GDI also counts corporate profits, interest, rent and depreciation, and the wage series does not split them. Moneywise pointed to automation, globalization and weaker unions as candidates, and cited Economic Policy Institute figures showing productivity up 93.2 percent since late 1979 against hourly pay up 33.7 percent. Those are arguments, not findings from this dataset.

The next quarterly BEA update will show whether the share breaks below 42 percent. Wage disbursements growing more slowly than income, as in the past year, point that way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are U.S. wages really the lowest share of income since 1929?
On the annual BEA series, 2025 at 42.1 percent ties 2013 for the lowest reading since the series began in 1929. The share has been within 42.1 to 44.6 percent every year since 2010, so it is a long plateau at a low level rather than a new collapse.
Does a 42 percent wage share mean workers lost over half their pay?
No. The figure counts only wages and salaries as a share of gross domestic income, which also includes profits, interest, rent and depreciation. Employer benefits are excluded, and total compensation was 50.9 percent of income in 2025.
  • wage share
  • gross domestic income
  • Bureau of Economic Analysis
  • FRED
  • labor share

Sources

  1. 01Shares of gross domestic income: Compensation of employees, paid: Wage and salary accruals, Bureau of Economic Analysis via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louisfred.stlouisfed.org
  2. 02Shares of gross domestic income: Compensation of employees, paid, Bureau of Economic Analysis via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louisfred.stlouisfed.org
  3. 03Gross Domestic Income, Bureau of Economic Analysis via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louisfred.stlouisfed.org
  4. 04Personal income: Wage and salary disbursements, Bureau of Economic Analysis via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louisfred.stlouisfed.org
  5. 05US wages plummet to 43% of national income, lowest since the Great Depression, Moneywise via Yahoo Financefinance.yahoo.com
  6. 06US Wage Share Hits 43% of GDI, Lowest Since 1929, Unusual Whalesunusualwhales.com

Corrections

No corrections have been made to this article.

About the reporter

Priya Kanth

Business & Economy Reporter, Trestlewire

Before I was a journalist, I spent five years as an equity research analyst, building spreadsheet models that nobody outside a trading floor would ever see. I learned two things in those years: that a compelling story and an accurate one are not always the same thing, and that almost every business narrative worth writing about is sitting inside a spreadsheet somewhere, waiting for someone to open the file.

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