Skip to content Skip to navigation Skip to collection information

You are here: Home » Content » American Health Economy Illustrated » 11.3 Employee Compensation in Ambulatory Health Sector Grew Slowly
Content affiliated with: American Enterprise Institute

Navigation

Table of Contents

Lenses

What is a lens?

Definition of a lens

Lenses

A lens is a custom view of the content in the repository. You can think of it as a fancy kind of list that will let you see content through the eyes of organizations and people you trust.

What is in a lens?

Lens makers point to materials (modules and collections), creating a guide that includes their own comments and descriptive tags about the content.

Who can create a lens?

Any individual member, a community, or a respected organization.

What are tags? tag icon

Tags are descriptors added by lens makers to help label content, attaching a vocabulary that is meaningful in the context of the lens.

This content is ...

Affiliated with (What does "Affiliated with" mean?)

This content is either by members of the organizations listed or about topics related to the organizations listed. Click each link to see a list of all content affiliated with the organization.
  • AEI

    This collection is included in aLens by: American Enterprise Institute

    Click the "AEI" link to see all content affiliated with them.

Recently Viewed

This feature requires Javascript to be enabled.
Download
×

Download collection as:

  • PDF
  • EPUB (what's this?)

    What is an EPUB file?

    EPUB is an electronic book format that can be read on a variety of mobile devices.

    Downloading to a reading device

    For detailed instructions on how to download this content's EPUB to your specific device, click the "(what's this?)" link.

  • More downloads ...

Download module as:

  • PDF
  • EPUB (what's this?)

    What is an EPUB file?

    EPUB is an electronic book format that can be read on a variety of mobile devices.

    Downloading to a reading device

    For detailed instructions on how to download this content's EPUB to your specific device, click the "(what's this?)" link.

  • More downloads ...
Reuse / Edit
×

Collection:

Module:

Add to a lens
×

Add collection to:

Add module to:

Add to Favorites
×

Add collection to:

Add module to:

 

11.3 Employee Compensation in Ambulatory Health Sector Grew Slowly

Module by: Christopher Conover. E-mail the author

Summary: Real compensation per hour has increased more slowly in the ambulatory health sector than in the rest of the economy.

In terms of worker purchasing power, real (inflation-adjusted) hourly compensation in ambulatory health care has matched changes in hourly output over the long haul (figure 11.3a). This might seem unremarkable except that it deviates from the experience in the private sector generally. In most of the economy, inflation-adjusted hourly compensation increased in the 20 years starting in 1987. However, it did not rise as quickly as changes in real hourly output over the same period.

In terms of employee purchasing power, real hourly compensation in ambulatory health care matches changes in hourly output over the long haul.

In ambulatory health services, real hourly compensation rose far more rapidly than either hourly compensation in the rest of the economy or hourly output in that industry. Subsequently, however, compensation steadily declined from its "excess" level in 1992 to a level more comparable with the change in hourly output by 2007. This is more in line with conventional economic theory that wages generally will reflect the productivity of labor. However, this compensation index measures wages in terms of worker purchasing power (as previously written, by dividing by the PCE price deflator to remove the effects of general inflation).

An alternative approach divides by the price of business output. This reflects the price of what a worker can produce in an hour. Doing this (figure 11.3b), the private sector shows a much tighter fit between changes in hourly output and what is paid to labor (although in recent years, compensation again has begun to lag behind higher productivity).

Relative to the price of hourly output, real hourly compensation in ambulatory health services has decreased since 1992; it rose in private business overall.

The facts in the ambulatory care sector are quite different. Although labor productivity increased by 10 percent over this period, hourly compensation declined by approximately the same amount. This reflects the fact that prices in the ambulatory health care sector have outpaced worker productivity gains. If prices rose in parallel with productivity gains—as apparently they do in the private sector generally—then real compensation for ambulatory services workers would have risen 10 percent also.

Briefly, real hourly compensation has risen less rapidly in the ambulatory health sector than in the rest of the economy. This reflects the reality that hourly productivity gains in that sector likewise have been less.

References

  1. Author's calculations.
  2. Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Collection Navigation

Content actions

Download:

Collection as:

PDF | EPUB (?)

What is an EPUB file?

EPUB is an electronic book format that can be read on a variety of mobile devices.

Downloading to a reading device

For detailed instructions on how to download this content's EPUB to your specific device, click the "(?)" link.

| More downloads ...

Module as:

PDF | EPUB (?)

What is an EPUB file?

EPUB is an electronic book format that can be read on a variety of mobile devices.

Downloading to a reading device

For detailed instructions on how to download this content's EPUB to your specific device, click the "(?)" link.

| More downloads ...

Add:

Collection to:

My Favorites (?)

'My Favorites' is a special kind of lens which you can use to bookmark modules and collections. 'My Favorites' can only be seen by you, and collections saved in 'My Favorites' can remember the last module you were on. You need an account to use 'My Favorites'.

| A lens I own (?)

Definition of a lens

Lenses

A lens is a custom view of the content in the repository. You can think of it as a fancy kind of list that will let you see content through the eyes of organizations and people you trust.

What is in a lens?

Lens makers point to materials (modules and collections), creating a guide that includes their own comments and descriptive tags about the content.

Who can create a lens?

Any individual member, a community, or a respected organization.

What are tags? tag icon

Tags are descriptors added by lens makers to help label content, attaching a vocabulary that is meaningful in the context of the lens.

Module to:

My Favorites (?)

'My Favorites' is a special kind of lens which you can use to bookmark modules and collections. 'My Favorites' can only be seen by you, and collections saved in 'My Favorites' can remember the last module you were on. You need an account to use 'My Favorites'.

| A lens I own (?)

Definition of a lens

Lenses

A lens is a custom view of the content in the repository. You can think of it as a fancy kind of list that will let you see content through the eyes of organizations and people you trust.

What is in a lens?

Lens makers point to materials (modules and collections), creating a guide that includes their own comments and descriptive tags about the content.

Who can create a lens?

Any individual member, a community, or a respected organization.

What are tags? tag icon

Tags are descriptors added by lens makers to help label content, attaching a vocabulary that is meaningful in the context of the lens.

Reuse / Edit:

Reuse or edit collection (?)

Check out and edit

If you have permission to edit this content, using the "Reuse / Edit" action will allow you to check the content out into your Personal Workspace or a shared Workgroup and then make your edits.

Derive a copy

If you don't have permission to edit the content, you can still use "Reuse / Edit" to adapt the content by creating a derived copy of it and then editing and publishing the copy.

| Reuse or edit module (?)

Check out and edit

If you have permission to edit this content, using the "Reuse / Edit" action will allow you to check the content out into your Personal Workspace or a shared Workgroup and then make your edits.

Derive a copy

If you don't have permission to edit the content, you can still use "Reuse / Edit" to adapt the content by creating a derived copy of it and then editing and publishing the copy.

  • © 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
  • The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer. Privacy
  • Last modified on Sep 26, 2013 2:11 pm -0500