There&#x27;s only so many jobs you need to create. The US have a population of about three hundred million. Not all of them work.<p>So, let cut it in half. You have a labor force of one hundred fifty million people.<p>But they&#x27;re not all employed. Some of them have great jobs, some don&#x27;t. Their wages are sometime shit, the working condition&#x27;s terrible. Some people sucks at keeping a job. Some just don&#x27;t have the skills.<p>Businesses aren&#x27;t exactly the paragon of efficiency either. They find it easier to just reject an entire category people, such as convicts.<p>So, you have this massive inefficiency where people who wants job can&#x27;t get them. High demand job can&#x27;t be filled because they can&#x27;t train the right people or they reject too many suitable candidates, such as old programmers.<p>Other factors conspire to make living more difficult. For example, real estate costs mean your cost of living is high, and you need to make X amount of money to have a roof over your head. Pressure is often not relieved because of housing policies and local politics.<p>Everything else gets cheaper to an approximation. Though it seemed that the price of computer remain constant, meaning your dollars buy more bang for its buck rather than decreasing in nominal price.