You Deserve a Bigger Paycheck. Here’s How You Might Get It.

The spectacle of the antitrust challenge to Big Tech has been riveting. But a far more consequential transformation in antitrust law has largely escaped notice — the movement to use antitrust law to address wage suppression and inequality caused by the power of employers in labor markets.

Economic theory says that when a pool of workers has only one potential employer, or a small number of potential employers, those workers will be paid below-market wages. Without the credible threat to quit and work for a competitor, workers lack leverage that could allow them to secure a raise and better conditions. This situation is sometimes called monopsony, and it is similar to monopoly in the market for goods. When buyers have no choice among sellers, a monopolist can charge high prices; when workers have little choice among employers, the employer can “charge” low wages.

Monopolies result in sluggish economic growth as well as high prices because in order to raise prices, monopolists make fewer goods or provide less in services. Companies that use their market power to suppress wages do something similar: They hire fewer workers, and this leads to unemployment and low growth as well. And because employers push down wages by reducing employment, they supply fewer goods, causing higher prices to consumers even though labor costs are reduced. A business might have monopoly power (over goods it sells), monopsony power (over workers), both or neither. If a small town has one newspaper, the newspaper has both a monopoly over local news and a monopsony over journalists. If the town has a single automobile manufacturing plant, that business will have a monopsony over the relevant skilled workers but not a monopoly over cars, which are sold into a national market where there are competitors.

Leave a Comment