Journalist David Cay Johnston wrote this over the weekend about how the bottom half of our economy is losing ground. He pulled this from a report that just came out by the IRS. 

—Half of workers make less than $520 a week, a figure that, adjusted for inflation, has been unchanged since 1998, Social Security data show.

—Average pay in 2013 was lower than in 2012 for 59 of the 60 levels of pay tracked by Social Security, with only the 110 jobs paying $50 million or more increasing in pay.

—The average income for 90 percent of Americans has fallen back to the level of 1966, according to IRS data.

—Just 1,361 households received 8 percent of all the real increased income Americans reported in 2012 compared with 2003, while the bottom half of Americans' income fell by 18 percent, a new IRS report shows.

 http://www.commercialappeal.com/opinion/national-and-world-commentary/david-cay-johnston-american-workers-deserve-must-demand-better_02920648

What has happened is our politicians got lazy. They stopped working hard in their job and took the easy money of the wealthy.  For that money they gave the wealthy what they wanted. All the wealth was funneled to the top and they let the corporations move jobs to get cheap labor.  The job growth has been in the low wage service sector.  

We have to catch up with other western countries and start taking care of all the people and not just a few wealthy families.