The peak for the average worker seems to revolve around 1965-1970, based upon various stats that I've read. This jives with my personal experience also. My fa

The peak for the average worker seems to revolve around 1965-1970, based upon various stats that I've read. This jives with my personal experience also. My father, who was employed in manufacturing as a foreman (and later, cost accountant, after earning his degree), was on his way up until the late 1970s. It was right around that time that manufacturing operations in the midwest and northeast started their first moves toward lower labor costs by relocating plants to the south and southeast (later, even this would not be enough and they would move to Mexico, China, etc.). The main purpose seemed to be union-busting. It practically killed our family, financially. My parents used up all of their savings (quite a bit, I might add) while my father tried, in vain to find employment. They had to sell their custom-built dream home (think modest 70s home, not modern McMansion monstrosity), and we were, technically, homeless for half a year while we lived with my aunt/uncle. My father eventually found employment as a cost accountant, but we had to uproot our lives and move to Florida. And, more importantly, my father's real earnings never recovered and he never got back to the level he had previously earned. There's a lot of evidence to show that all of this was intentional and orchestrated: http://www.laborrising.com/2013/07/union-organizing-and-the-business-roundtable-and-american-labor/ http://www.laborrising.com/2013/07/union-organizing-and-the-... Note, this was written in 1979, after about 10 years of the effects of the efforts of organizations like the Business Roundtable. BTW, I can't help but add: the small hometown where I grew up in the midwest now has a pretty bad Oxy/Heroin/Meth problem on its hands.