“Does anyone know why this is happening?”

Yes. Thom Hartmann and others have written about this. It started after the civil rights, antiwar, feminist, peacenik, environmental, etc movements of the 1960s and early 70s.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated specifically because he was uniting poor Whites with Blacks, calling for Socialism, and launching the Poor People’s Campaign.

It was a conscious, deliberate response by the elite — against the economic and political warfare conducted by the middle class in order to eliminate the classist systemz of oppression.

The Lewis Powell Memo: A Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy

Written in 1971 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

see also Thom Hartmann’s book: “Screwed: The Undeclared War on America’s Middle Class”

also: “

**Why Oligarchs Don’t Just Want to Be Rich, But Kill Democracy Too ** The deeper reason why the powerful and wealthiest think your ability to vote is dangerous.

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/oligarchs-against-democracy

see above article — one of the best. chock-full of the best history lessons — including England’s maximum wage law back a few centuries ago.