> It makes perfect economic sense: it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value.
That assumes that the number of available jobs is perfectly-sized and fixed, and that there's no other work that could be done (or no under-employed, existing work that could be done better) if we had more workers. That would seem not to be true.
>That assumes that the number of available jobs is perfectly-sized and fixed, and that there's no other work that could be done
No it assumes the exact opposite of a fixed number of jobs-- it assumes the other work wasn't being done because wages were too high to make it profitable, but as the workforce grew the price of labor dropped until employers wanted to hire into those jobs. That's the whole idea behind supply and demand.
How would you explain the stagnant wages of the last 4+ decades compared to the massive economic growth? I don't think there's much evidence that the relationship between labor supply and economic growth is anywhere near one-to-one (e.g. one more person working means their wage is added to the volume of labor demand).
Wages have not been stagnant across all sectors of the economy. Certainly some jobs aren't valued as much, and their value hasn't been growing or even keeping pace, but there are plenty of areas where wages have been increasing quite a lot over the last couple decades. Given that this is generally a tech-focused forum, that shouldn't be news to anyone here ;)
That assumes that the number of available jobs is perfectly-sized and fixed, and that there's no other work that could be done (or no under-employed, existing work that could be done better) if we had more workers. That would seem not to be true.