12flare,
You have it figured out.
While the root causes of the economic problems of the majority of the USA residents, govts (and for most of the world for that matter) are not caused by what we usually discuss, they manifest themselves financially.
For 35 years plus now the working class has taken it on the chin as more and more of the money has flowed elsewhere, even as the productivity of labor has increased.
One of the many sad things about this ongoing social tragedy is that 40 years plus of propaganda from the media,general entertainment, and even our education system has sold the majority of the working class on the idea that people who perform unskilled labor don't deserve to make a wage that one could possibly live on. Hence we feel like Oliver Twist when he dared ask for "more".
When I graduated from high school my union card said "helper"...a nice way to say unskilled labor. With that job I was able to buy a brand new car, build flight time in a flying club while saving for future ratings, and had money in my pocket. (for those who may be interested in how a vibrant economy works, I didn't buy a new car again until the year 2000....ponder that fact, and its ripple effects multiplied by millions, and you get some idea as to why an F.O. on a regional jet makes 23/hour, but I digress)
In the 60's it was understood that someone who was working for a living needed to make a certain amount just to get by. Every employer understood this, and the general public understood this without a second thought. Call it the social contract if you will. Somewhere along the line we had a gradual revolution that decided that work has almost no value and its ok to not pay the people who do it.
Yet we still want this work done.
And then we have the hypocrisy to critricize the work ethic of those who labor at these jobs.
Its as though we have become an economic version of Kapos.
And so it goes.