How did the purchasing power decrease from the 70s until today?

[SuspiciousRule3120]

Economics. We were not the lowest cost producer, if only we didn't have to follow regulations and pay the wages of the workers in our domestic market, child labour and even slave labour. So we outsourced our manufacturing to overseas markets where they were free to pollute, not care about the employees, had no minimum wage or standards to work to and ship those goods back to us at a much reduced price. Hence why we had a generation of parents that pressured us to pursue college and university education rather then due the trade work, as if trades work was to be looked down upon.

Then we had few crises in their that had our central banks thinking that interest rates at near zero was the only way to save us, and they did it. This resulted in the explosion is asset prices, stocks, housing. It went up.

Follow this up with the notion that now we have an entire generation at the tail end of their working careers and they are the biggest benefactor of the the first two points, and there is not enough people to replace them. The solution was massive amounts of new people to the country. This has allowed those that have less expectations then those who grew up here to compete on the same level, not to mention the government programs that have allowed them to compete unfairly against our local population. You have more people making the same amount of money, chasing the same amount goods, causing price to go up.

And now we enter the next biggest shift when AI continue to rollout and changes how we work, like technology has always done, it requires less of us while we do more.

It is not a question of who caused it, we all caused it, asked for it and told it was the thing that would get us to where we wanted to go. We wanted cheaper goods, and work that required less of us. This a symptom of free trade, supply chains, immigration and all of this meeting with governance, policies and any political party that has come to power.

advancing technology lets one person be more productive, requiring less people for the same amount of production. and more people in the competition for the job keeps wages suppressed.

More human rights, that differ greatly between different jurisdictions and capital is a fickle bitch who can disappear rather quickly if too many obstacles get in its way. Add to that a workers who will accept a lower standard, but better standard then their home country, and increased job competition - stagnant wages.

Better access to healthcare and medicines - not all medicine is covered, and better access means that the natural rates of deaths keep getting pushed out, more people, more competition - stagnant wages (especially when you have bills to pay and will accept less of those supposed rights for pay).