Odd Lots · Friday, September 18, 2026
Analysis of pass-through business data reveals that while the overall economic pie is growing, owners are capturing an increasingly larger share of it, with income for owners rising significantly faster than worker compensation. This trend contributes substantially to wealth inequality.
“The pie is growing. the share that the owners are capturing of the pie has gone from like a third or 40% to like 50%. They're capturing a larger and larger slice.”
“So, you know, we tell different examples, like we have a colleague, Kevin Murphy, who's one of my favorite economists. And he just, his first language is economics, not English. He can just go up to the board. Just as a quick aside, I used to, as a first year faculty member, I went and sat in his class. It was the most amazing class. You sit there and he's like, what are you guys interested in? It's like, why is the labor share falling? And he just goes up to the board and just derive like three or four equations and have the most It's coherent and beautiful, and.”
“But the workers are not, you know. capturing those proceeds. But let me just give you some numbers because they really are striking. So I think if memory serves, in 2001, the value add per worker, so that's like add up profits and pay for people, was. 34K a worker. And then that went up 18K to 52K in 2021. So there's 18K per worker of growth. Owners got 15 of that and workers got the rest.”