For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades, that is not me saying it but the Pew Research Institute. And you can find similar studies all over the web including on the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The interesting part is macro and the real cause is rarely discussed. You hear about immigration and China but please consider the following two paragraphs.
In proportion as the capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the workers has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc.
Isn’t that exactly what is happening today. These are the people you have to fight with about everything from car insurance to medical bills. They are not their to help you, they are their to make the “boss” money.
Do you agree with the above two paragraphs? Do you know who said them while back then, Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto. I modified couple of words so you do not dismiss the thought based on the language but reality is, he nailed it on the head. Yes the comrade had your back from way back then.