What’s Keeping Middle Class Salaries Low?

Between 1979 and 2024, productivity in the U.S. soared by 80.9%, while hourly pay grew by just 29.4% during the same period. In June 2024, two-thirds of middle-income households reported that their income was falling behind the cost of living. This trend has often been referred to as ‘wage stagnation’. But more recently, economists have suggested that deliberate policy decisions have actively suppressed worker’s wage growth. So what exactly is preventing the middle class from earning a higher paycheck?

Chapters:
1:06 Policies, location and globalization
5:53 Employment conditions
9:16 Politics

Produced by: Juhohn Lee
Edited by: Andrea Miller
Animation: Jason Reginato
Supervising Producer: Lindsey Jacobson
Additional Footage: Getty Images, Kyle Connolly

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What’s Keeping Middle Class Salaries Low?

[VanjeAv]

We literally saw companies make record profits and make record layoffs at the same time. These past 2 yeas have been insane.

[etxblue]

2 things politicians say they care but don't
- Middle Class Workers
- Small Business

[-.TS.-]

The term “Middle-Class” makes me chuckle. It’s just “Them” and “Us”, no in between. Feeling part of the middle class and putting yourself above people who make less money is creating the false sense that we are being adequately compensated.

[gigilee]

I was wondering how they were going to blame this on the workers. "You're not moving enough".

[jackhowe]

Why middle class wages aren't growing? Because that would be money not going to the already rich.

[TheMoeP]

Why wages aren't growing? Simple, because they don't want you to earn more, more money for the working class means less money going to the 1% greed. It makes you question if what you're doing is enough to live while you should be questioning why companies keep registering record profits. Anyone remembers the "Occupy Wall Street" movement? yeah, they made sure no one does

[TWICException]

Corporate and billionaire greed. Saved everyone 14 minutes.

[john_doe_not_found]

Most people today who think they are "middle class", are actually "working class".
Middle class = someone who can buy a home, vehicle, 1 or 2 vacations per year, on a single income, and still save a bit towards retirement every year. If that isn't you, you're Working Class. And these days, most people barely get by on 2 incomes, meaning most people are Working Class.

Rich
Middle Class
Working Class
Poor

In the 1950s, America grew a large middle class. Today America has a large Working Class.

[GeorgeSchneider]

CEO to worker income ratio 🇺🇸:
1965 : 20.4
1975 : 26.6
1985 : 50.5
1995 : 118.8
2005 : 318.4
2015 : 318.8
2021 : 389

[lilliankerr-zc]

Given the persisting global economic crisis, it's essential for individuals to focus on diversifying their income streams independent of governmental reliance. This involves exploring options such as stocks, gold, silver, and digital currencies. Despite the adversity in the economy, now is an opportune moment to contemplate these investment avenues.

[rannyorton]

The average person has never been so poor. Millions of families are struggling financially as living expenses hit the highest levels in more than four decades. Over 60% of our country lives paycheck to paycheck and about 40% earns poverty wages. Even after working all their lives, more than a quarter of older people have no savings and many believe they will never be able to retire in dignity, while around 55% of elderly people try to survive on an income of less than 25, 000 a year.

[teebone]

They are giving our wages to share holders

[Sprinklebesties]

My brother works in a bank as an accountant, the bank sent a charity check of 1 million dollars to Israel but no pay raise for employees. I assume most all companies did this .

[Northwest]

The stock market, and tying our retirement to 401k has been detrimental. It makes the focus about growth at all costs. Lower wages, cut jobs. The greed is unending

[chickdan]

There is no middle class. Only working class and ownership class. There is only one direction to point fingers at…

[silkcitysocialist]

middle class is a meaningless term...its literally PR with no definition or parameters...its just the owning class and working class

[pritchardmhere]

Are we pretending that increasing the number of houses while doing nothing to stop wall street from buying them all is moronic beyond belief.

[alexander_sinclair]

I really think the biggest issue is housing. If we bring down the price of housing by making more of it, then people don't need to make as much money to be satisfied. For example, if everyone's rent went down by $750 a month, that would fix everything.

[excusemenoexcusemeno]

Because CEOs and big corporations rather spend billions in repurchasing share buybacks instead of giving employee raises.

[JustforfunbyDanilo]

It's getting expensive for employers/business owners to go on multiple vacations each year, so the employees pay for it in lost wage increases. Change my mind.