*The real world scenario is not quit as bleak, Wal-Mart, for one, pays significantly higher wages than many small businesses it supposedly runs out, and compliments many other businesses, all in all pushing up standard of living and jobs)

- The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2% since 2003 after factoring in inflation while productivity (the amount that an average worker produces in an hour has increased in that period has risen in that period.

- Wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of US GDP since the government began recording this data in 1947 while corporate profits have frown to their highest share since the 1960’s.

You don’t think that the fact that nation’s largest employer pays wages at artificially low rates has something to do with this problem.

Its not just Joe Biden that warns about threats of too many workers living below middle class levels. Just last week Ben Bernanke the conservative Fed Chief appointed by Pres Bush warned that “recent economic changes threaten the livelihood of some workers and the profits of some firms” and that “policy makers must ensure that the benefits of global economic integration are sufficiently wildly shared.”

In many towns Wal-Mart is a virtual monopoly, they move into a small town, squash all of the local competitors at which point they are the only real employer in town, they can pay whatever low rate they want becuase there is not competitor in the local labor market, its work at Wal-Mart at minimum wage or starve. This is what a lot of “free-market” proponents do not understand, it is not a free market when a monopoly exists.