What is an employee worth, as an economic unit?  In the absence of a labor shortage or non-economic forces, it&#x27;s just maintenance and education cost.  A dorm in Shentzen, some food, and training programs. The maintenance cost on humans hasn&#x27;t increased much in recent years.  Why should wages ever go up?<p>Rising wages means that people are being paid more than they&#x27;re worth as an economic unit.  Unless you&#x27;re willing to take the position that people should be paid more than they&#x27;re worth, you can&#x27;t expect wages to rise.<p>Unions once explicitly took that position.  A century ago, when Samuel Gompers was asked what he wanted for his union members, he answered &quot;More&quot;.  That&#x27;s really what unions are for.  In the 1950s and 1960s, not only did unions take that position, many manufacturing companies had come around to agree with it.  It was a basic bargaining position in UAW negotiations of that era that wages must rise with productivity. The auto companies went along with this.  That drove wages up across the US.<p>That ended in the 1970s.  It was the result of explicit policy decisions.[1] Ronald Reagan is called the &quot;Great Communicator&quot; because he was able to sell some of those policies.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.h-net.org&#x2F;reviews&#x2F;showrev.php?id=35277" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.h-net.org&#x2F;reviews&#x2F;showrev.php?id=35277</a>