The REAL Reason Americans Feel So Poor (even when they aren’t)

WAGES are incremented for inflation on an equal percentage basis for median workers, but not at all for minimum wage workers and their immediate supervisors. Prices increase by the inflation rate at the 90th percentile - the median DOLLAR. THAT is why we are worse off, both comparatively and absolutely - although overseas workers are even worse off, as you say, so that most people get cheaper stuff - with these costs driven down accordingly on lower quality goods and imported foods.

Trump's goal (and those of his voters) are to upend the global neoliberal regime. A feature, not a flaw. Tariffs based on comparative GDP help American workers (but not consumers or business owners), although those tariffs should, in part, be used for human capital improvement projects in our overseas supply chain. I do not expect that from Trump.

The real question is comparative power, not comparative well being (which is a distraction from the former - see Marx on commodity fetishism).