The key takeaway here is that over the past 4 years S&P 500 companies after-tax profits increased 50%, while the earnings of everyone else recorded a decline of roughly 30%. How can that possibly be an accurate picture of the earnings of all the companies operating in the US? According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), there are more than 6 million firms operating in the US. Since the start of 2015 US firms have added nearly 12 million workers to their payrolls – of which over 80% of the new jobs occurred at non-S&P 500 companies. It’s just not plausible that firms would be adding working and continue to lose money at the same time.
