Disclaimer: I use no data, only going off of personal experience and friend circle anecdotes to create a theory. The balance is that in some ways, we have econ

Disclaimer: I use no data, only going off of personal experience and friend circle anecdotes to create a theory. The balance is that in some ways, we have economy-wide collusion-by-default to keep wages artificially low. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I think we've hit the point of increasing returns on job growth depression. When one looks at the rate of underemployment and the employment rate writ large, it seems like the number of jobs is just few enough that the pay doesn't have to go up, regardless. Furthermore, many industries don't seem to really pay attention to using wage as a lever. Often, this is because individual companies have difficulty justifying hiring someone at 20-30% more than their counterparts, and their counterparts haven't received a significant wage increase in years, often decades. When combined with the rate of inflation not being matched by wage growth, it begins to look "normal" to many employers that wages should be particularly low.