American corporations have been awash in cash ever since they started off-shoring. While executive compensation has increased by over 1000% since 1980, worker wages, in real buying terms, have declined. The cost of labor, as a percentage of costs, is now LOWER than it was in the Guilded Age.
While GDP increased, employers said the gains were due to automation, and not the workers, so no raises for you. The executives deserved the raises because it was their brilliance which was making their companies so profitable. They absorbed increases in materials, supplies, insurance, premises, transportation, and everything else that goes into their bottom line, but cried poverty every time wage increases came up.
As one example, I'll use my job as law clerk. In 1980, when I had an electric typewriter and a photocopier, I used to close between 5 and 10 deals a month. I was paid $300 per week $1,300 per month. I billed $6000 per month. In 1985, I got a word processor, and suddenly, I could close 15 to 20 deals a month. I was now making $500 per week $2,200 per month, and I was billing $12,000 per month.
By the time I retired in 2011, with a fully computerized system, I could close 30 deals and bill $24,000 per month, and I was paid $4000 - 17% of billings. And while my earnings had tripled during this time frame, my employers earnings from my work, rose by 427%. And I'm one of those who wages actually grew during this time frame.
I have friends and family members who were making $14 per hour when NAFTA was ratified in the early 1990's, saw their wages drop like a stone after NAFTA came in, and finally got back to making $14 per hour in 2010.
This disparity has everything to do with government employment and taxation laws. The Chinese are not "stealing" your jobs. Neither are immigrants. Your CORPORATIONS are giving your jobs away. Nobody is "stealing" them at all. Your government and your corporations are screwing you over, and you keep letting it happen.
