Just a couple of days ago, I was musing about the disconnect between wages and productivity. That is, productivity was racing ahead yet wages were pretty dismal. That’s not the way the deal is supposed to work—if workers are laboring their little tushes off in the workplace so that every hour worked is a more efficient one (that is, they are more productive), the deal is that they see that hard work reflected in their paychecks.

And, to the rescue, come my friends at the Economic Policy Insitute. They show in a short report that productivity has been strong for almost a decade. Between 1995-2000, hourly output—that is, the average production capacity of a worker—went up by 2.5 percent—which was a big increase from the 20 years before. And, then, more recently, “productivity growth has accelerated further, growing at an annual pace of 4.1%. Although this recent pace of productivity growth is probably not sustainable, it seems reasonable to expect that productivity growth will remain at or above the higher levels established in the mid-1990s.”

The problem is that wages haven’t risen. Why? Because corporations are keeping the profits, socking them away rather than distribute them to the people that created the profits. Now, you would say: well, that’s corporations being corporations.

Not exactly:as the EPI folks explain:

Over prior business cycles, profits (including interest income) have accounted for 23% of the growth in corporate-sector income, on average, with total compensation accounting for the remaining 77%. In the current business cycle, the distribution is almost reversed: profits have claimed nearly 70% of total growth in the corporate sector, while increases in compensation (from increased employment and higher hourly compensation) have received just over 30% of total income growth.

And there lies the basis for a populist message to attack the role of corporations in modern America.