In the past, concessions would be given to workers to stave off talk of revolution. Think of the new deal, etc.
These days, whether through incompetence or ideological intent (the end result is the same so the distinction doesn’t matter much to me), the ruling class just will not allow any pumping of the brakes, any tiny release valve to stop the pressure building.
I find it a fascinating phenomenon that they are incapable of doing something positive for society, even to save their own skin. It baffles me, especially considering how successful it has been in the past.
How about: the falling rate of profit does not allow the same level of concessions that were granted before. After all the neoliberal reforms were conceived in the middle of a global profitability crisis and managed to stop the fall for a few decades
And / or: deindustrialization has turned the vast majority of the ruling class into financial as opposed to industrial capitalists. Financial capitalists are not harmed by falls in consumption, in fact they are completely uninterested in the material product of the United States and their profit is composed of whatever they can leech off the local and international industrialists.
This needs expansion but it's an idea.
Part of the problem is I think we are still attached to the anachronism of nation states. Most of the economy is multinational now and the people who run and benefit from it are materially separated from the American people. So to some degree or another they have less of an interest in seeing the American peoples needs met.