In reply to GameboyRMH :
First of all, compensation has very little to do with contribution. Compensation, the fraction of a company's profit paid to workers, is determined primarily by worker power. A company that existed in Victorian England (say, a bakery for example) would pay their workers very little not because their contributions were small, but because their power was small. That same company in the '60s US, with their workers making the same "contributions," would pay their workers handsomely because the workers' power was great in that place and time. It's especially interesting that this exact scenario would've happened in the real world even though any 1960s bakery would've had far more automation than an 1860s one.
Second, you see young low experienced people succeeding every day due to the selection bias caused by your work environment. That would be like me implying that most people are comfortable with command-line interfaces and programming because I've seen a lot of that at work.
Third, it's not just people stacking boxes who are having trouble affording housing, it's educated professionals who put in just as much work as those fresh-faced kids you see, but weren't seen by you. As a rough guess, to comfortably afford housing in most average-cost regions of the first world, you'd need a top-20% income if you're a member of generation Y or Z. And that leads on to the last point:
It is a problem if the lower 80% of the population by income can't afford housing even if they have ordinary low-end jobs. They're not failing to make an effort, their job is effort and a job that doesn't allow an adult to support themselves should not exist. It should either pay more or be automated so that people aren't wasting their time volunteering for a business' profit. That situation can't sustain a healthy society.
Boost_Crazy said:
The background level is simply inflation.
The background level is not inflation, if it were, the blue line in this graph would just be flat:
Sorry, I'm a couple pages behind. You guys have been busy!
Compensation is directly related to the VALUE of contribution, not quantity. We as a society have decided what values we place on different forms of labor. Someone who works 8 hrs. as a brain surgeon does not make the same as someone who worked 8 hours stacking boxes. If they did, we probably wouldn't have many brain surgeons. This isn't Victorian England. We have a little more freedom and opportunity. The flip side of that is that we have more responsibility for our own success and failure. It sounds like you would prefer that someone else had that responsibility.
Now, we don't have to agree on what society values different forms of labor. You think professional athletes or actors are overpaid? Don't support them with your dollars. Company ABC pays their VP too much? Don't buy their products. Company XYZ is made in in the USA and takes care of their employees? Buy from them, even if they are more expensive. You get to vote with your dollars.
The background level for housing pricing increases IS inflation. Without other market forces, they would follow inflation. And we wouldn't be calling it background level. But market forces do exist and are much more influential. Hence inflation = background level.