美國靠領薪水致富的有多少?

The idea of the 'leisure class' has been dying for decades. The wealth boom of the past 20 years has been fueled more by the working wealthy entrepreneurs and executives than by passive capitalists who earn a living off their investments and spend the rest of their days sailing or golfing.

Yet new research shows the change has been more rapid than we might expect. A study released Tuesday in Canada shows that the top 1% of earners now get more than two-thirds of their total income from salaries. That is up markedly since the 1950s and 1960s, when less than half (45%) of their total income came from paychecks.

'What's driving the trends is how the work of those at the top is valued. It's not capital gains, it's not how many assets you've got, it's really a question of earnings and how the work of the bosses, the celebrities, the artists, the athletes are rewarded now,' Armine Yalnizyan, senior economist Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told the Vancouver Sun.

The U.S. has experienced a similar increase. According to income research from Emmanuel Saez, wages accounted for 56% of income for the top 1% of earners in 2008, up from 40% in 1960. Dividends, interest income and collected rent accounts for the rest. He also found that business ownership accounted for only a third of the occupations among the top 1%.

Says Mr. Saez: 'The evidence suggests that top incomes earners today are not 'rentiers' deriving their incomes from past wealth but rather are 'working rich,' highly paid employees or new entrepreneurs who have not yet accumulated fortunes comparable to those accumulated during the Gilded Age.'

The fact that soaring salaries at the top have helped the rich, and driven up inequality, isn't news. Attacks on Wall Street bonuses and CEO pay are now part of the daily media diet. Whether these salaries are actually justified or not is another debate.

But the marked increase of the salaried rich shows just how much the upper class has changed in recent decades. Thorstein Veblen, in his famous 'Theory of the Leisure Class,' published at the turn of the century, wrote that 'manual labour, industry, whatever has to do directly with the everyday work of getting a livelihood, is the exclusive occupation of the inferior class.'

Today, even the true leisure class or what's left of them want to be seen as productive.

Why do you think salaries have replaced capital as the source of high incomes?“有閒階級”的概念在數十年前就銷聲匿跡了。過去20年來涌現出的財富更多得益於努力工作的富人企業家和高管，而不是光靠投資過活、業餘時間消磨在航海或打高爾夫上的消極資本家。

然而，新的研究表明，這種變化也許比我們想象中快得多。加拿大週二發佈的一項研究顯示，現在最富1%人羣總收入的三分之二都來自薪水。這個比例自20世紀50年代和60年代以來大幅上漲，那個時候這一人羣的薪水只佔總收入的不到一半（45%）。

加拿大政策研究中心（Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives）高級經濟師亞爾尼珊（Armine Yalnizyan）接受《溫哥華太陽報》採訪時說，這種趨勢的動力在於這些高收入人羣工作的價值定義方式。不是資本收益，也不是所獲資產數量，真正的問題在於賺取的收入，在於老闆們、名人們、藝術家們還有運動員們的工作獲得回報的方式。

美國也經歷了類似的增長。根據賽斯（Emmanuel Saez）的收入研究，2008年，工資佔最富1%人羣收入的56%，比1960年的40%有所增加。其餘爲分紅、利息收入和收取的租金。他還發現，最富1%人羣中僅有三分之一擁有企業所有權。

賽斯說，證據顯示，如今的高收入人羣已不再是通過財富累積獲得收入的“食利者”，而是“努力工作的富人”，他們是高薪員工，或財富尚未積累到與鍍金時代富豪同等水平的新興企業家。

高收入人羣薪水飆升對富人有利，加劇了不平等性，這早已不是新聞。攻擊華爾街的紅利和CEO的薪水早已是媒體每日的家常便飯。至於這些薪水是否真的合情合理又是另一個議題了。

但富人收入中薪水比例的大幅增加表明上層階級在近幾十年發生了鉅變。凡勃倫（Thorstein Veblen）在其知名的世紀之交出版的《有閒階級論》（Theory of the Leisure Class）一書中寫道，凡是體力勞動、生產工作或是同謀生直接相關的任何日常工作，都是下層階級的專有工作。

如今，即使真正的有閒階級也想被視爲具有生產力。

你認爲薪水代替資本成爲高收入來源的原因是什麼？