Generally speaking, business owners generally don't hire people just for the hell of it, nor are they likely to expand their operations unless there's sufficient reason to believe that they expect greater demand for their product one way or another.
What we have seen over and over again is that if the poor and lower-middle income groups have more money, they tend to spend it more, thus stimulating the economy more because of creating increased demand. The same ratio does not, however, necessarily happen when people in the upper income levels get more money because they may not spend it or they may spend it other than in this country. This is one reason why the "Bush tax rebate" didn't work out too well because they found that only roughly 1/3 of the savings was actually spent on domestic goods and/or services over a one year period.
And it is this fact that is rather depressing in that, as medium income keeps declining in this country, and as people get more and more economically squeezed, our future prognosis in terms of demand isn't too promising. On top of that, there's the issue of more and more of our production being "Walmarted", namely cheap imports that has the effect of encouraging other companies to move their operations out of this country in order to compete, thus more jobs are lost, and businesses will continue to lower wages, and demand will continue to decline, and this doesn't bode well for our future.