[GregoryFul]

US wages are higher than they have ever been

Perhaps in $'s. But in terms of purchasing power, I don't think so. 30 years ago I was earning more in real terms (income vs. housing prices, auto prices, food prices, etc) than I am now - but I'm much more skillful and productive than I was then. While corporate executives' income has gone up 100 fold in 30 years, engineers' income has gone up by maybe a factor of 4 in fiat dollar terms, and has dropped in real dollar terms. I can hardly afford the house I bought 26 years ago.

[JasonC]

That long ago - right before a particularly strong bout of Carter inflation incidentally - the average hourly wage was under $5. Broad CPI and average wages are up about the same amount since then. Disposable income is up twice as much - 7.26 times - because of more people working (a lot more 2 earner families e.g) - and higher income from things besides wages (interest, rents, dividends, etc). Individually you may not have kept pace with inflation at its strongest, 1970s levels. That can and does happen. But on average we are all vastly better off than we were in the 1970s - when a TRS-80 was newly fangled, only a few percent of the population had ever been on an airplane, there was no cable let alone internet, etc. Not to mention the horror of the clothes, and oh god the hairstyles...