[USER=11264]Zeuge[/USER], already we are seeing jobs in China where they pay more than the US, not that many of course but the trend is up.
Material standard of living is a complex issue and heavily affected by personal preferences, but on average $X in China is worth more than in the USA.
I believe that the American experience in all this is not so much unique, but ahead in time of other countries.
When I was a new grad there were about 3-400 million economically relevant people in the world, Western Europe (with 1/3 of Germany missing) the USA/Canada and Oz/NZ/HK/Sg. Now that there are literally ten times as many people and some factor more companies to employ them and more people and firms to consume their output we have a much more liquid market for labour.
As in primitive financial markets there exist people whose income is driven by inefficiencies in the labour market, but those inefficiencies are moving away. A more liquid market will not allow economic actors to get higher prices for inferior supplies so we will see globally an increasing gap between rich and poor, but at the same time poor people who were shafted by the inefficient market will get richer both in absolute and relative to the middle. I see a thinning out of earnings for midscale jobs where the price for labour was skewed by inefficiency.
People whose skills are in high demand will see their pay go up and at the bottom the demand for menial labour will drift up, but also converge, therefore an American or European who does assemlby work will over time go to the same pay level. That's one we see the income gap increasing in the USA and it's not at all easy any way of stopping it that doesn't cause horrible effects on America or Europe's competitiveness.
When helping people upgrade their resumes, one thing I try to identify is some "I do X", skills that particular employers must have to continue making money but that are hard to source in the market. A lot of Europeans & Americans feel that they don't have an X and thus want protection against global labour market efficiency. It is in no way a coincidence that the European countries that have the worst debt problems are those that have the greatest structural inefficiencies in their labour markets. They could get out of the hole really quite quickly if they broke them down like the UK did in the 1980s, indeed a problem facing UK politicians is that having made that upgrade there is no obvious course of action to increase growth. My wife's work as lawyer involves counselling US businesses on issues around employing people in Europe and it's quite clear that many Americans flatly refuse to believe that an economy could work with such problems, so conclude that her advice may not be 100% sound.
Labour mobility is a big strength of the US, yes it could be better and health reform is important in that.
But...
The USA cannot help but lose relative position in the world. It's relative growth was in periods when competitors were engaged in highly destructive wars or self inflicted mad economic policies. Economic stupidity is on the wane globally (though with some horrible exceptions) and so the US is facing better competitors.
