America desires to take pride in all sorts of achievements, some true, some mythical, and some absolutely false. That is to say, to actually believe that America is the land of opportunity is at best, a half-truth, for that opportunity in this modern era, is certainly not equal for all of the people, whatsoever; and seems instead to be distinctly skewed towards favoritism to certain types of persons, certain types of corporations, and certain types of circumstances supporting those that are connected or well positioned.
A case in point, is the labor share of income, in which we read at mckinsey.com, that when it comes to the status of the labor share in America, we thus find that, “…three-fourths of the entire post-1947 decline occurred between 2000 and 2016.” Further we are told, that all things being equal, if the labor share of income had remained at the level it was in 1998, that “…average worker pay might be higher in real terms by roughly $3,000 per year,” which is a sizable amount of money to not have -- for those of the laboring class, who would most definitely want to have those funds available for them in order to aid them in taking care of those necessary things.
The bottom line is that the monies which historically would have gone to the laboring class, has not actually disappeared, but has been re-allocated to mainly those that are in the executive positions of certain corporations, as well as in the hands of those that are the investors, in such. In other words, while the laboring class, continues more and more to struggle within a construct in which they are clearly regressing, those that are the masters of that labor or are investors in corporations, of such, have never had it better.
All of this is reflected in the material fact, that America, though immensely wealthy in aggregate, is becoming, day-by-day, more unequal in how that wealth is so distributed, and we do find, that never have so few in number, had so much. Not too surprisingly, in a nation, in which the rich have the lion’s share of the resources, and a massive underclass has pretty much nothing of worth held in their name – that leaves essentially only the middle class to truly represent what America actually is, in substance; and of that middle class, they are struggling, cause quite frankly, being shorted $3,000 annually, is a big deal.
If this nation, actually cared about its laboring class -- rather than its national representatives consistently doing the bidding of the superrich as well as kowtowing to the well connected, then this nation would take it upon itself to do two fundamental things. The first would be to establish a national living wage, with an annual cost-of-living adjustment attached to it, and the second would be to actually enforce a progressive tax system, which would through its robustness eliminate all the tax dodges and workarounds, so used to great effect, by superrich individuals, as well as behemoth corporations. Until then, things will continue to get worse for the laboring class, before they have any hope of them getting any better.