Abstract
Corporate executives have decimated the middle class by downsizing, outsourcing, sub-contracting, moving production abroad, and utilizing endless schemes to employ temporary workers who can be hired seasonally, or simply part-time, or as independent contractors who are not called employees. Corporations have bypassed unions altogether by shifting operations to right-to-work states (in the USA) or abroad. They have opposed raising the minimum wage, which remains much lower in the USA than in the UK. The result is that workers have less economic security than they had in the 1970s: even middle-class employees have seen their standards of living stagnate at best, while losing benefits, everything from healthcare to decent pensions. And for the most vulnerable workers, corporations have widely practiced wage theft or deliberately misclassified workers as independents not entitled to any benefits.
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Luzkow, J.L. (2018). The Decline of Main Street and the Middle Class. In: Monopoly Restored. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93994-0_5
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