Could you give this guy the stats ?
They cannot. They've tried.
Sorry, you're on your own.
My first car was a '66 Mustang...
and I won't be drawn into some silly debate as to whether a '64 VW or an '05 Kia is "better".
As far as I'm concerned, they're BOTH imported crap.
this comes up every time. the only meaningful statistic is private sector wages excluding government employees (public school teachers, workers at public hospitals, public transportation) - because they get raises every year paid for by taxes from the private sector - and excluding executives making over $300K per year (arbitrary), because we are trying to exclude the concentration effects of offshoring. Oracle sends 500 $70K engineering jobs to India, those workers end up earning 30% less at their new jobs, but 25 Oracle executives take home a $500K bonus as a result.
That's the only real wage trend I am interested in seeing. Of course, the public school teachers don't care about this wage trend from their perspective, and that's their business. But to find out what is really happening to the private sector middle class, this is what you would need to see.