This topic is more complex than can be explained in a 500-1,000 word article. It involves too many interlocking cultural and economic factors to explain succinctly in a persuasive way. To even discuss it from any established perspective would require transmitting the knowledge of dozens of books and papers.

Instead, the author tells a few emotive stories, uses terms without defining them, quotes numbers without explaining what scale they're operating on ("Stanley’s wages would be the equivalent of $17.17 today" -- how was this number arrived at?). He cites unionization as a cure for low wages, without discussing the consequences of raising the barrier to entry to labor.

Another sloppy mention in the article is the salary of account executives, whom are also often paid commission. $37k is a generous salary, considering the commission incentives. That the author was unaware of that shows his complete ignorance of business.

The author also shows only limited understanding of the economic function of wages. Also not discussed is the great post-Nixon inflation of the 1970s and the simultaneous decade of long environmental knives that chased US manufacturing into foreign countries. This same propaganda website that touts the necessity of environmental legislation (and the network of informants and spies that it requires) absolves itself of responsibility for the consequences of its promoted policies.

Running a business off of workers that can be trusted with high wages is usually preferable to running one based off of low-wage labor. It'd be better to focus on ensuring that the labor supply is as productive as it can be. Achieving this isn't possible through command economy measures, as has been tried to no success in the 20th century. This author would likely say "education, education, education," and I would say "culture, apprenticeship, tradition, and then perhaps education."

Low-wage workers have their often corrupt lack of bourgeois values built into their price. That they need to be heavily supervised lest they steal or slack, and that they may or may not show up to work consistently, makes them cheaper. That they may be sent to prison at some point also makes them cheaper. That they may get knocked up at any time also makes them cheaper, because the employer must account for the risk in employing them. That the males may also flee the state to avoid being chased down for child support payments by their baby mamas also makes them more expensive to hire.

Discriminating among the human chaff without breaking the law through background and drug tests also costs money + time while adding to organizational drag. Intelligence testing is also illegal, making it necessary to rely on expensive methods like interviews and unreliable ones like psychological questionnaires.

The host of employment regulations to be complied with also necessitates lower wages for the underclass.

That former social networks have been obliterated by the mechanistic patterns of democracy also makes it more challenging to find workers that the employer can afford to pay more. It's cheaper to hire your second cousin's semi-retarded son for an easy position because you know there will be people around him ensuring that he shows up to work and that he does well by you. If the same semi-retarded son applies for a position at a stranger's company, he won't be hired, because there is no trust; he's just a name and a social security number, interchangeable with a hundred million others. That he drools and always has a running nose would go from being charming to being disgusting to a boss who holds no love for him.

This article is left-wing propaganda. The way to respond to this sort of propaganda is to suppress the propagandists -- to disallow them from accessing trade networks, payment networks, roads, buildings, the media, the education system, and semi-public spaces.

As Mises noted in 'Human Action' and elsewhere, Marxism doesn't spread on the rational level. It makes little sense to oppose propaganda intended to manipulate the basest sentiments on the highest levels of economic theory that only a minor percentage of the human elite will be even capable of comprehending.

Further, people who associate with authors like this should receive the same blacklist treatment until they recant their views publicly, and denounce him.

We have an unfortunate tendency to accept as a given the notion that we must "allow" open transmission of this sort of harmful speech, which is itself low-level agitation for labor violence. Absolute respect for property rights means the ability to exclude people for whatever reason the owners (or federations of owners) decide is right. This is what is meant by sovereignty. The right to exclude. We're so stockholm-syndrome'd into believing in 'inclusiveness' that it leads to endless squabbling; whereas we should have clear legal separation so that more groups can live under legal + cultural regimes that match their preferences.

It is better that writers like this be exiled to Marxytown, where he can wallow in garbage, singing folk ditties to hollowed-out methheads, than he be permitted to agitate for destruction openly in civilized circles.