&gt; I suspect that productivity simply isn&#x27;t increasing for a lot of jobs.<p>It is a lot simpler:<p>What happens when you have fixed demand combined with huge increases in productivity?<p>If an individual has enough leverage they can capture the extra value.... otherwise they will actually find themselves worse off.<p>For example, a cleaner today can handle roughly 3-4x the floorspace (etc) compared to a cleaner 50 years ago. That is a clear productivity increase. And I&#x27;d argue people still value clean shops etc as much as they used to.<p>&gt; I would expect that workers who can do that will be highly compensated for such value produced.<p>It&#x27;s more because as a group they tend to have better leverage and they aren&#x27;t currently demand constrained.<p>For example I have enough cash in liquid assets to cover 12 months living expenses, and I work in a field where I&#x27;m unlikely to be out of work for more than a month. Even more importantly a good chunk of the other workers with my skill-set also have lots of leverage.<p>So if my job adds $1 million to the bottom line I&#x27;m in a good position to negotiate for a decent chunk of it. Especially because demand far outstrips supply.