The problem in part, as I see it, is that Republicans are willing to create lower paying jobs even as they lay off the higher priced workers. Its almost as if there was a wage bubble...yet inflation has eaten up much of that bubble.
At the grocery store that I work at, top wage was $15.00 an hour fifteen years ago, and just $17.00 today. The corporations, however, want to pay around ten dollars an hour max...and are giving new job opportunities to desperate people scarred by the recession.