For decades, corporate profits and employee wages grew at a similar pace. But since 2002 or so, corporate profits have surged past worker compensation.
As The New York Times reported in July, "Corporate profits have rarely swept up a bigger share of the nation’s wealth, and workers have rarely shared a smaller one."
Jared Bernstein, an economic adviser to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., told the Times that workers would have significantly more cash in their pockets had their share of the country's wealth not shrunk so much. In total, that amounts to about $532 billion, or $3,400 per person per year.
Meanwhile, the majority of corporate profits have been going to corporate investors and chief executives, whose compensation is often based on stocks, or foreign mergers and acquisitions.