My personal observation is that the decline in personal income began in the mid nineties. About the same time income disparities between the wealthy and the working class started to quickly grow. When the argued NAFTA would make “us” more wealthy they left most of us out of “us”. What did you think would happen when a factory closes down leaving many well paid hard working Americans unemployed, one is the very wealthy shareholders made a few more bucks per share. Another outcome is that ceo’s ,cfo’s and other officers in companies received greater bonus’. Workers found less opportunity and lower wages.Did they expect all blue collar workers to go to college to be accountants ,lawyers, and brokers? The last 15 years has been a consolidation of wealth, that’s all.
See my post #38. Immigration has done more to depress wages in this country than anything else. We are still bringing in 125,000 legal foreign workers a month now. This includes new permanent residents (green cards) and long-term temporary visas and others who are authorized to take a job. This makes no sense.
The same damn thing happened when they closed down the plants making horse-drawn carts, buggies and covered wagons.
Hard-working people lost their jobs and wealthy shareholders made a few more bucks per share. Which they invested in the automobile industry...
Bingo.
You’ve nailed the X-ring.