Noah Smith, Columnist

How About a Free Market for Wages?

States should ban contracts that bar employees from seeking higher pay at a rival.

July 25, 2018 at 7:00 AM EDT

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

Let my people compete.
Photographer: Andy Cross/Denver Post/Getty Images

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Capitalism isn’t working right. The U.S. economy is growing, but workers are seeing less and less of the benefits. Since the Great Recession, real gross domestic product per capita has increased substantially, but real compensation per hour — which includes benefits like health care — hasn’t grown at all:

This continues the disturbing trend of labor receiving less of the national pie:

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