Wages and The Market
In the 19th century, employers stove off employee demands by bringing in immigrants willing to work under existing conditions. In the 20th Century, consequent the Great Depression, prohibition of child labor, immigration reform, … it was no longer so easy for employers to ignore workers demands. Unions took root and membership grew and so did the workers’ wages and benefits; welcome: the end of child labor, the 40 hour week, living wages, and paid vacations.
Fast forward to the late 1960s: Beginning of the end for US manufacturing dominance. Unionized industries moved south in quest of lower wages; thence to Mexico, … Fewer and fewer union jobs, fewer and fewer union members. 1970S, manufacturing exodus to Asia begins; labor becoming more and more irrelevant in US, unadjusted wages stay the same. 1980S, Immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and Asia brought in to work for less. Wages continue decline. 2000, Bush II mounts assault on labor and small business. They didn’t call; it that, but that is what it was. The intent was to put labor in its place. Dems remain on sideline, clueless. 2008-2016, Dems still clueless, went with rhetoric and old fashioned religion. 2016, Trump. 2020, Dems still clueless, keeping talking about the good old days, the good old union days.