I think the reason, if you had to pin it down to one instead of "confluence of factors", could be almost entirely demographics: * The Boomers, an extremely lar

I think the reason, if you had to pin it down to one instead of "confluence of factors", could be almost entirely demographics: * The Boomers, an extremely large generation, enter the workforce in number in the 70's... * Simultaneously, the older generations with more of the industrial and trades know-how that powered the mid-century economy are now retiring. * The new focus of the economy in the 70's involved a restructuring around imported-goods, services, high tech, with corresponding winners and losers. * Part of this restructuring also involved a revamped military to roll out the new "smart weapons" and run a professionalized military instead of the conscription troops that fought in Vietnam. When you add those trends together, it will look like a stagnant graph: investing in high-tech doesn't come with immediate payoffs, and the new cohort is larger so they have to compete more intensively for top positions while not having the job experiences of the previous. DoD spending has an outsized influence on the balance sheet, and 1994 marks the start of the Internet boom, which reflects the tech sector's move away from defense contracts(the end of the Cold War came with major layoffs in defense) and towards VC moonshots, right around the same time that Gen X is entering - a much smaller generation. The Boomers are at that point entering more senior career roles; both cohorts are productive in the sense of facilitating deskilling, offshoring and cost-cutting, which make the balance sheets of the 90's look great, and reflective in many cases of genuine efficiencies that were now coming to fruition.