I suspect this is the largest factor. Productivity has gone up. The recession probably accelerated a process that was already underway; it's cheaper to do more with less, and these workers are just not needed as much. It'll take years before an erosion of buying power starts to swing the pendulum back the other way.But it also likely reflects longer-run shifts in the economy that have eroded workers’ bargaining power, particularly for the less-educated.
I hear about it from a lot of my friends in different fields from medical to retail to manufacturing. Cuts in benefits, payroll hours, even personnel become an annual thing now. A lot of people are pretty close to their breaking point, where they can't do much more than is already asked of them.
Is that really true for a significant percentage of people? The only minimum wage job I ever worked was in high school, and it had nothing at all to do with my later, greater than minimum wage, jobs.Minimum-wage jobs are meant to be the first rung on a career ladder, a chance for entry-level workers to prove themselves before earning a promotion or moving on to other, better-paying jobs.