Remember that time it came out the biggest 3 software firms had an agreement not to poach talent from each other, keeping wages artificially low?

Look at the line HR ALWAYS uses in salary negotiations. "We pay market rates"

The market rates never go up above market, because that would disrupt the same low wages they currently pay. Unless your role is indispensible in bringing in business (connections to other people who control market share or otherwise generate sales) your wage will consistently drop. The high earners are all commission and perfomance based.

"Worker" professionals like IT, mid-low tier HR, Finance, etc all get paid the same year after year at rates that rise way lower than inflation. It's common to see highly compensated individuals who make the same 1 million dollar salary year after year but their bonuses are a percentage of performance which is way above and beyond that base salary.

Bonus %s are always bigger the higher you go up in an org based on performance too, even for middle management. Why would that be? 10% of 100k is only 10k, but 50% of 500k is 250k. Screwed both ways per usual.

I mean, Andy Jassy did say a few weeks back that this is the stuff that CEO's have discussed together. It's a fucking stupid statement for a CEO of a huge company to make, because it points towards obvious collusion, but we are where we are.