In the United Arab Emirates, there are price-controls in place for certain low-level services. Like the price that a hair salon can charge for a haircut is price-controlled at a low price-level. This way they prevent a situation where a hair stylist can start accumulating wealth beyond their socially assigned (slave-like) status by becoming great at their craft, opening a premium hair salon and charging premium prices and accumulating wealth in the process. [Needless to say, craftsmanship is at a very low standard over there as a result]. -- The U.S. system is basically that, only not as blatant. It keeps down the underclass, because that's what's needed to enable the elites.
That makes it sound cruel and cynical. But the opposite is also cruel and cynical.
Take Austria as a counter-example which has very high per-head GDP and is at the same time one of the countries with the lowest Gini-coefficients in the world (low income-disparity). Your yearly increment in wealth post wealth-transfer like tax & government spending, social security, etc in Austria when you're a McDonald's cashier is probably three times what it is in the U.S. But for a highly qualified Software Engineer it's probably only a third of what it would be if they worked an equivalent job in the U.S.
Imagine you earn a six-figure salary in the U.S. in a Software Engineering job and you move to Austria: You might well find yourself in a situation where your neighbor, who is a bricklayer, has a bigger house than you, drivers a nicer car, works less hours, etc because they get paid in cash and cheat on their taxes.