In the early 70s I was earning a decent wage working in a distribution warehouse Adjusted to today’s economy, that wage would be 39$ an hour. My last jonb was also in warehouse distribution doing pretty much the same thing I did in the one I had over four decades ago however with the added responsibilities of co managing two departments and the account for our company’s most important client.. My final rate of pay when I left was 11.50$ an hour which in the economy of the early 1970s would equate to a few pennies over 2$.

In that time span between we have been though three Democratic and three Republican administrations, two costly wars, and one serious economic meltdown. Wages basically flatlined during the late 70s to early 80s (while costs continued to rise and productivity was pushed harder) fuelled by both anti union sentiment and the promise of higher profits by farming manufacturing outside our borders to take advantage of cheap labour. We have been moving away from a living wage manufacturing based economy to one of low paying service oriented and gig jobs (the latter that put workers under more economic stress for expenses and benefits that were traditionally covered by employers).

Free college tuition is not the answer as not everyone is cut out for college. There are many skilled people who have been left behind by outsourcing and (soon) automating our manufacturing sector. They re not stupid or lazy as some would infer, they just have a different aptitude and skill set which is becoming less and less in demand for the sake of higher corporate profits.