- Feb 22, 2017
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No, they're the ones who haven't seen any real increases in income because of the policies enacted by the Reagan government and the destruction of the union movement. Workers whose jobs were displaced by off-shoring lost good paying jobs. Any remaining jobs in their sector suddenly had wage drops because of the competition for the few remaining jobs. I watched it happen with friends here after NAFTA was approved.
Jobs which paid $15 per hour disappeared after NAFTA became law in the early 90's. The few remaining jobs paid minimum wage, which at that time was $7 and change. It took 20 years for these workers finally got back to the $15 per hour they were making in 1990, and the minimum wage was then $10 per hour. Of course by then $15 didn't buy nearly as much as it did back in the early 90's.
Little known fact about offshoring....of all the jobs lost only 20% of them went overseas. The rest were lost to automation and increased efficiency. It is not coincidence that as manufacturing employment numbers were dropping manufacturing output was still growing in the US.
My father was a production worker. He bought a modest house, and raised 6 kids on his wages. Yes they raised chickens in our yard, and fed us all from a big kitchen garden, and my Mom sewed all our clothes, but they were able to do it on my Dad's wages. Today, my production worker friends have both parents working full time, in order to provide for their families.
Today they are providing much more, cell phones, cable TV, internet, and the like. If people lived like your family did they could make it easily on one income. My family was a one income family for the better part of 20 years till the kids were old enough not to need their parent 24/7. We were not rich but we made do.
Reagan promised workers a big raise when the unions were gone. That was a lie. Trump promised workers a $4000 raise from the tax cuts, and that was a lie. When Reagan was elected, production workers owned 5% of the wealth of the country. Today, production workers are dependent on "earned income credits", food stamps and other government handouts to make ends meet. And now the middle class is losing their share of the wealth, all of which is trickling up.
The only people benefitting from the US economy, are the wealthy. Everyone else is losing ground.
Thus the moral of the story is not to rely on the government to make things better for you.