Although productivity has steadily increased, the bottom 60% of Americans have not had an increase in real wages since 1979. The profits of productivity have all gone to the richest segment of the population. How have people subsisted? They have survived through accruing personal debt and relying on social services. Maintenance of personal debt means money remitted to the richest segment of the population. As debt becomes unsustainable, the people default. When they default, the financial institutions are bailed out by the government using the taxes collected primarily from the bottom 60% of the population. After the rich are bailed out, the bottom 60% is subjected to Austerity measures, meaning that the social services upon which they depended for subsistence are radically reduced or eliminated, thus leaving them with no other means of survival but going back into debt.
This is what has been happening in the United States, and the model is reflected globally.