Saw a post about this at !history@hexbear.net and was a bit confused by exactly how badly the people there were going at each others throats in the comments. Nobody seemed able to agree on what precisely happened in 1971. Suggested explanations included:
- Neoliberalism being declared the state religion by Grand Moff Richard Nixon
- The gold standard being abolished
- The oil crisis
- The Republican and Democrat parties becoming increasingly divided
- Declining birthrates
- Institutional Racism
If any of you could give some explanations with, like, sources that aren’t just 10 pages of graphs with arrows pointing at 1971, that would be pretty great.
There’s a fair amount of evidence linking wage stagnation over the last 50 years to erosion of collective bargaining and union membership. Unless there are very strong incentives companies are not going to pay employees more than they need to. Employees as a group have a lot of bargaining power, but as individuals, very little. Unless you happen to worn in a highly skilled, and high demand occupation, which are exactly the jobs that have seen wages remain comparatively high.
Thank you. I love when people cite sources