There’s a fair amount of evidence linking wage stagnation over the last 50 years to erosion of collective bargaining and union membership. Unless there are very strong incentives companies are not going to pay employees more than they need to. Employees as a group have a lot of bargaining power, but as individuals, very little. Unless you happen to worn in a highly skilled, and high demand occupation, which are exactly the jobs that have seen wages remain comparatively high.

I don’t understand how you link tones to the do re mi scale? Tones in Mandarin are about relative intonational patterns (rising, falling, etc), I find it hard to understand how you set the tonic note (the do) for a conversation, unless you are literally singing the entire conversation.