I don't understand economics. Take something I do know about: Retail Electronics. Of course, I'm going back thirty years ago when VCR's,  and TV's that were heavy enough to break the back of Iron Man, and stereos in cabinets were beginning to come out in surround sound were sold. A day when remotes turned a TV on and off and changed channels with five or six buttons, max.
Salespeople at that time were making fifty to one hundred thousand per year at companies like Silo and Circuit City on commissions and bonuses from the manufacturer. The bonuses were called spiffs. They were paid monthly from five to twenty dollars extra to sell a particular TV or VCR.
The retail outlets began asking for the spiffs for themselves so they could dole them out in a better way. As it turned out the stores slowly began sucking the spiffs into their profit margin and the salespeople lost those incentives completely. The stockholders were happier. the sales people had less for their basic needs.
The pay has gone to a point now where the sales staff at Sears and Best Buy and so forth are earning ten dollars an hour or less. That folds out to about twenty thousand per year which is about one third of what it was thirty years ago. And in those thirty years costs of goods like food, clothing, gas, and housing has gone up exponentially. So, a salesperson in this industry is barely above the guy on the street corner with his hand out. In the electronics industry a new product comes out on the shelf at a high price, but within six months or a year it has dropped considerably.
Why the change?
Stores want more revenue, stockholders want their fare, manufactures want a decent profit margin, off shore suppliers mass produce at lower cost, and Walmart, the whore of all retailers have given more places to shop for the similar electronic goods.    The worker suffers!