For that matter, the rise and fall of the middle class tracks perfectly the rise and fall of union membership from the '30s to the '90s. I think it was this organic redistribution of wealth that fueled the economy for decades. Unions got higher wages and benefits pushed into the middle class, who then spent this money on products and services, thereby sustaining business, and so on. Socialist propaganda I know, but it seems better than companies and Wall Street taking the workers' wages and pensions and then the government spending trillions to inefficiently prop everything up. A massive redistribution of wealth out of the middle class. The PATCO strike, although illegal, was the watermark for busting unions and since then CEO salary has gone from 20x employee salary to 400x employee salary and the middle class has plummeted.