Click here to access article from Real-World Economics Review Blog. (Note: This is an extract from a longer paper by Gary Flomenhoft.)
The author uses the charts to illustrate how US application of neoliberalism has used "the threat of starvation [to] motivate people to seek employment", and I may add, to create a more docile workforce. Also I think these policies were a ruling class form of revenge or reaction to all the anti-war militants during the Vietnam War and the Black nationalist movement during the same period. For example, "war on drugs", which resulted in a disproportionate number of African-Americans and poor people being incarcerated, was facilitated by the CIA. This was revealed years later first by journalist Gary Webb who investigated and found that the CIA was importing drugs from South America which ended up in the Black ghettos of US cities.