There is no reason in hell for that. In the 60's I made a minimum wage of $1.25hr. It was a living wage. I went to collage $5.00 for a student body card & books. I worked, went to school & had enough for a beer after. The great majority had enough to live on, & as AOC says should be able to go on vacation. That economy needed to be for all but as we see today the artificial barriers. Business made money, people made money, it promoted small business. Most everyone was getting a share.
There's a very simple reason: The Revenue Act of 1964 lowered the highest nominal income tax rates, which shifted the tax burden to the working class and enabled those with the highest incomes to hoard more of it. That caused the average annual rate of inflation to go up like a hockey stick and remain around 4% since then.
That $1.25/hour minimum wage would be worth $13.15 in today's money, but the national minimum wage is hardly more than half that.
Workers have been getting squeezed.
There is no economic reason that we can't have all that we had before. IIRC that was started by JFK.
We were no longer in a war at that time tho that was changed fairly quickly, the buildup in Vietnam was 65.
The real end to that whole economy started with Nixon. He married the GOP to Fundies & HardHats. They went after education with 10biggies in school & becoming members of school boards everywhere, but the time Reagan showed up to complete the task we were screwed.
BTW when that was lowered it was brought to 40% as an average.
captain acab 
A_Minion
John Carlsen 🇺🇸🇳🇱🇪🇺