Comment by Workaccount2

>who actually do the labor under those people are being paid less

No, that's where you have it backwards they are being paid more. That's the exact reason why they are buying that house when you say "who the fuck can afford that".

Ironically, they are also the ones being exploited the most by the top 1%.

An amazon warehouse sorter will never create or do anything that makes amazon much more money than what they are paid. They get $18/hr for producing $21/hr of value, doing the same static task all day everyday. Amazons "profit margin" on these workers is almost nothing.

The lead cloud architect though gets paid $350k/yr, but can design a single change that will make amazon $30-40 million/yr. The profit margin on them is insane. And they are the ones outbidding everyday people on things, driving up costs.

Back 60 years ago, everyone was much more clumped around the same (lower) income, so the houses where smaller and the prices more amenable to more people.