The next time someone says "you are poor because you are lazy," show them this!!

I just bumped into this graph on Facebook. With it, came this message "The next time someone says "you are poor because you are lazy," show them this!!".

Well, that's a very simplistic analysis, isn't it? Let's think about it for a minute...
According to this graph, whose data comes from the US (i guess?), we see a spike in productivity from the 80's to nowadays (an increase of 80%), while the salaries only increased about 8% in that same period.

Off course you CAN say that people aren't being compensated according to their productivity. But, hey, in reality, you can pretty much say whatever you want (if you live in a free country ;o)).

But that really isn't a fair analysis. If we want to be fair, let's take a second to analyze what happened during that period? Well, computers and technology is what happened.

And with these new tools, we were able to do a LOT more in the same amount of time, a lot of the times, with less work.

So is it fair to say that we are getting ripped off because we produce more than what we earn?? I do not think it is.

If you want to do a fair analysis, get a graph that shows you how the cost of living or the inflation grew over that same period! If you see the same spike we see with the productivity line in this graph (i don't think you will), then you know you are getting ripped off! ;o)