If this[1] is to be believed, Volcker intentionally targeted working people's salaries.

> Volcker said that the prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s was a "hall of mirrors" and that the "standard of living of the average American must decline."

> Volcker angered Reagan officials by keeping interest rates too high. When they complained he would pull “out his card on union wages” and note that inflation would not come down permanently until labor “got the message and surrendered.”

1. https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/120406526269525606...