The 52-Cent Economy: Where the American Output Dollar Actually Goes

America produces nearly $32 trillion a year, but the median W-2 worker experiences only a fraction of the aggregate output. This Pattern Nexus report maps GDP, total employee compensation, cash wages, government purchases, total government current expenditures, taxes, transfers, and the after-tax worker-capture problem. It tests the claim that only 10 cents of each productivity dollar returns to the people producing the system—and replaces the slogan with a defensible multi-layer accounting model.