In 1981, I was a full time stock clerk at an Ohio Big Bear grocery store making 12.60 an hour [View all]

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Time and a half for overtime, double-time for Sundays and Holidays, got 8 hours of pay on my birthday (whether I worked that day, or not) and got two weeks of paid vacation each year.

I started part-time at Big Bear at age 16, so by 1981, I had been there 6 years. $12.60 an hour was at the top of hourly wages.

I was a high school graduate.

You have to understand. At that time, this was a job you could buy a modest home with. It was a job that would place you solidly in the Middle Class. You could raise a small family with this job.

We were not Union, but our closest competition, Kroger, was. We understood that the reason our wages and benefits were so good, was because of the Unionized Kroger workers.

Some calculators I have used showed that $12.60 an hour, plus overtime and holiday pay in 1981, would equal $96K a year in today's money.

Next time you are at your local grocery store, ask one of the Stock Clerks if they are making $96K a year?

I know there are some variables I am not looking at, but, my story is a pretty good example of what has happened to wages and the Middle Class since the 1980s.

I am not saying that the 1970s-80s was an age of enlightenment, but this country has been valuing wealth over labor for the better part of 4 decades now.

I am not smart enough to have the answers, but the way we have gone since 1980 is not sustainable.