[Clubber]

>A local fast food chain pains its store managers 1.5x the median household income in my state. Anyone who can run a construction crew can earn real money. In my city you can't find anyone to put up fencing for any price.

What you said is true, but for every manager, there are 20 people under him that don't make a good living and that's just the nature of the pyramid structure. All of those 20 people can't be managers or foreman, so 19 out of 20 are stuck every cycle, until the manager quits or moves or whatever.

It's like the lottery, anyone can win the lottery and be rich, but it doesn't mean everyone will.

It wasn't always like this, but business practices moved to squeeze every dollar out of every resource in the name of efficiency regardless of the human cost in most cases. That's certainly a cause.