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The 1950s had a great thing going. Once you hit $100,000 in a year, anything beyond that was taxed at about 90%. Nobody wanted to give the government 90% of what they'd be making, so no one did, and the 1950's were absolutely booming for the US middle and lower class. You could afford a new house, car, and two kids at a job you didn't need a college diploma for (or often even a highschool diploma) on a single income household.

Without having to pay ridiculous sums of money to the ceo's and executives and whatnot, companies were just left with the option of using the funds to invest back into their companies and their employees instead going after pocketing as much money as quickly as possible.