Growing up in a middle-class family, my parents worked constantly but saw little return for their hard work. It is common to ask why workers, especially middle-class employees, are not doing better in today’s economy. There are several answers to this question, but some of the most relevant include the fact that labor unions are becoming weaker, companies can find cheap labor abroad, the rise of large companies with small labor forces, and most significant of them all – the use of company buybacks and dividends. While employee wages have seen subtle increases in recent years, inflation has also increased making a dollar less valuable today than it was forty years ago. With that being said, what can be done to increase wages and continue to keep company profits high?

The current labor market is extremely strong and continues to grow. Drew DeSilver states in his article For Most U.S. Workers, Real Wages Have Barely Budged in Decades, “ U.S. unemployment is as low as it’s been in nearly two decades (3.9% as of July) and the nation’s private-sector employers have been adding jobs for 101 straight months – 19.5 million since the Great Recession-related cuts finally abated in early 2010, and 1.5 million just since the beginning of the year.” While this is great news, wage growth has been lagging far behind profit growth despite the decline in unemployment. A real average wage forty years ago has the same purchasing power as a real average wage today, and unfortunately, most of the growth in wages is seen by only the highest-paid employees who have experienced a 15.7% increase in wages since 2000 (DeSilver 2).

As a visual for how little median weekly wages have changed after adjusting numbers for inflation, a weekly salary of $232 in 1979 has the same value as $840 does today. (“Usual Weekly” 1). Wage growth needs to be seen across the board of employees, not only the top 10th percentile. Large companies, such as Walmart, have such high profits and have the ability to distribute some of their profits into their employees’ pockets (who are likely to put their money right back into the economy and more specifically probably right back into the individual company). While profit is vital for the survival of a company, the focus needs to be taken away from solely maximizing profits and shifted towards maximizing value to its customers, employees, and society as a whole.

Donald Trump likes to claim that he has transformed the economy into the best it’s ever been. This, however, is not accurate for all citizens of the United States. Even though the unemployment rate is at an all-time low, it was decreasing at a much faster rate under Obama’s administration than it currently is under Trump’s – but he is selfishly taking all the credit. Wage growth is important to note here because it had a steady growth pattern from 2014 to 2017 up until it began to slow down in 2018 d