I'm sure you didn't mean to imply it, but there is a difference between wage earners and salaried workers.
At my company, salaries increased each year by an average 3.5% for cost of living adjustments. Based on performance, some made more and others made less. Promotions boosted the increase substantially, but the pyramid effect eventually slows down promotions as fewer "boxes" on the organization chart become available as one climbs the career ladder.
One major thing of the past are defined pension plans that rewarded longevity at a company. If someone remained at a company for their entire career, there was a nice retirement nest-egg waiting for them when they retired.
-PJ
Quite a few companies today do not offer a pension plan — hey, that’s what Social Security is for, right?
Older people who worked for big companies did get nice pensions back in the day. Young people today are less likely to get that. You get a 401(k) instead, which is nice but it’s not a pension.
For better or worse, companies used to have middle management layers. Maybe you start off in the proverbial mailroom, but if you showed promise, there were slots above that you could move into. But today, most companies have been hollowed out. You have grunts at the bottom who have no future, and high-paid people at the top who make all the decisions. If your company needs to hire another highly-paid decision maker, they are most likely to hire someone from another company rather than promote a grunt within their own corp.
It’s always been a pyramid, with lots more jobs at the bottom, and fewer people at the top. But I think the pyramid is sloped a lot more acutely today and it’s harder to climb that ladder.
I retired 1/1/2023. I had a decent pension in my portfolio.