[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...

[GregoryFul]

There have been vast technological changes since the 70's that have given us lots of things at very low prices. Yes, most of us live more comfortably than the lords of the 17th century - and we earned it; through the labor of our forefathers and our own labors, and bloody fights with the ruling class, the power elite. We've almost maintained our own, but our children and grandchildren are going to take it on the chin unless we get and retain an equitable share of the wealth we have produced over the last century. That will not happen unless we fight for it.