Commerce Secretary promises 6% GDP growth while workers' share of GDP hits lowest point since 1947

Every Jan., the world's most powerful people gather at a ski resort in the Swiss Alps. The World Economic Forum at Davos 2026 drew 64 heads of state, 830 CEOs—including Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, and Satya Nadella of Microsoft—and six of the G7's leaders. Danish officials boycotted over Trump's Greenland annexation threats. Trump sent the largest American delegation in the forum's history.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared on Fox Business from Davos on Jan. 22, 2026, predicting U.S. GDP would exceed 5% in Q1 and hit 6% by year's end. He credited Trump's tariffs, corporate tax cuts, and deregulation for driving factory construction and business investment. He also announced a $1 trillion semiconductor plan with a 10% federal equity stake in Intel.

Lutnick made his fortune on Wall Street. He joined Cantor Fitzgerald in 1983 and became CEO at 29. On Sep. 11, 2001, terrorists destroyed the firm's headquarters in the World Trade Center, killing 658 of his 960 🗽New York employees—including his brother Gary. Lutnick rebuilt the company and became a billionaire, now worth an estimated $2-4 billion. He donated over $14 million to Trump's 2024 campaign, co-chaired the transition team, and pushed the administration toward its maximalist tariff policy.

Wall Street economists project far lower growth. Goldman Sachs predicts 2.5%. Bank of America: 2.4%. The Wall Street Journal survey of economists: 2.17%. The Federal Reserve's Dec. 2025 projections: 2%. The IMF: 2.4%. The Philadelphia Fed survey of 33 forecasters: 1.8%. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, at the same forum, predicted 3-4%. Truist's chief market strategist called 6% growth 'a really tough hill to climb.'

The U.S. hasn't sustained 6% annual growth since the 1980s. Since 1947, GDP has averaged 3.1% per year. The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates Trump's tariffs could reduce GDP by 0.4-0.5%—tariffs raise prices for consumers and businesses, trading partners retaliate (which could more than double the losses), and employment falls hardest in manufacturing, mining, and agriculture.

GDP measures total economic output, but not how it's distributed. The share going to workers held steady at around 63% from the 1940s through 2000. Three-fourths of the post-1947 decline in labor share happened between 2000 and 2016, driven by automation, globalization, the rise of China, and the loss of middle-skill jobs. By Q3 2025, workers received 53.8 cents of every dollar produced—the lowest since tracking began in 1947.

That same quarter, productivity surged 4.9%—the fastest in two years. Workers produced more output while their share of it fell. Economists link part of the productivity surge to AI adoption. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate AI could eventually displace 25% of all work hours and 6-7% of jobs.

Fortune 500 companies posted record profits of $1.87 trillion in 2024. S&P 500 companies returned $1.6 trillion to shareholders that year—$942.5 billion in stock buybacks, the rest in dividends. Over the past 15 years, 94% of corporate profits have gone to shareholders rather than workers. Employers added 584,000 jobs in 2025, down from 2 million the year before.