

Poverty in America: Why Can’t We End It? - ThomPete
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/why-cant-we-end-poverty-in-america.html?pagewanted=all

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csense
From ~1950-1970, unions were powerful and they redistributed a lot of income
from business owners to employees. Compared to today, there were a lot of
high-paying low-skill jobs available.

After the US opened its borders to global trade -- in particular Nixon's
famous visit to China -- the unions became less powerful and wages became
lower because companies had to compete with overseas workers, who didn't have
troublesome unions, didn't have to pay their workers well, didn't have to
enforce good working conditions, didn't have to comply with environmental
regulations, et cetera.

In other words, the surplus that used to be captured by US workers has started
to go either overseas or to business owners, thanks to our trade policies.

