> But also the bifurcation of blue vs white collar wages really accelerated through the last 40 years. That is the spread between what my dad made working at a record store vs the professor/admin staff/etc at his college made increased tremendously. Think about it - minimum wage at federal level has only doubled in the last 40 years, while some quick googling looks like professors make 5-10x what they made 40 years ago (as most white collar has).

Which can also be blamed on Reagan specifically and the larger "trickle down" movement he inspired, which gutted protections for unionized labor and badmouthed unions in general so they became a dirty word in American politics, only very recently finally getting back at least some credibility.

That old meme comes to mind where someone is like "my hobby is putting Reagan's face on graphs of economic data the year he got elected" and watching everything just go completely tits up after that point.