There is an inflection point around the late seventies and early eighties which marks a huge expansion in the depredation of the upper class upon the middle and

There is an inflection point around the late seventies and early eighties which marks a huge expansion in the depredation of the upper class upon the middle and lower classes. Prior to that point, increases in worker productivity positively correlate (at least weakly) with improvements in the purchasing power of worker wages. Afterward, working class purchasing power went flat or dropped even as their productivity shot through the roof. The owner class acquired the ability to capture everything, and they chose not to let it trickle down, by the terminology of the time. They didn't spend it. They loaned it or invested it, such that it never fully left their control. After the abolition of slavery and advent of industrialization, labor movements have occasionally been able to claw back more of the workers' share of trade in the specialist economy, and then keep more equitable sharing of revenues going for a while afterwards, but the working class hasn't caught any breaks for a solid 40 years now, and unions are now relatively weak, compared to their historic peaks. Prior generations got peanuts for their extra efforts, but they did at least get something.