U.S. Workers Worth $420k Apiece, Don't Get Paid For It

I've made many arguments before that U.S. workers are largely underpaid and grossly taken advantage of by their employers. Trends over the last 30 years, since Ronald Reagan's ridiculous "Trickle Down" theory of free market economics, show median wages for the middle and lower classes have effectively decreased when adjusting for inflation even though worker production is at an all-time high, and yet corporations and the wealthiest 1% of Americans continue to see astronomical gains in wealth. A Wall Street Journal analysis shows that for S&P 500 companies, workers earned their employers roughly $420,000 of revenue per person. Yet, wages remain stagnant for the working class, and 1 in 4 Americans is out of work. And major corporations continue to send jobs overseas instead of hiring here at home. A study like this makes Republican calls for lower taxes to spur economic recovery even more baseless.

But I think that another point should be made in this. With workers being exploited so drastically, with their wages stuck in slow reverse, it'd be something if only they could all form some kind of group, I don't know, some kind of unified coalition to demand fair pay and better benefits. But unified coalitions in private and public companies are at a 70 year low. There's something there, I just can't put my finger on it.