Yah, and real DISPOSABLE INCOME has dropped Sure. Is that why real average annual per-capita consumption has increased 2.3% a year for the past 30 years?
Median wage has dropped--it was high-water in the mid-1970's.
Someone's getting funny with their calculator.
"The typical household today has a disposable income higher than any other time in history, and when taking into account all forms of benefits that workers now receive, compensation to workers is about 27% higher in real terms than 25 years ago. Workers earn in less than four days a week what their parents earned in five, and they make in three days on the job what their grandparents earned in five."
"The median family income has risen to $52,600 a year, which, as Michael Cox of the Dallas Fed, points out, gives families a level of purchasing power that would have been considered wealthy through most of history."Wages of Prosperity
"What the reports tell us is that the vast majority of Americans have not bumped into income glass-ceilings, but rather are experiencing an astonishing pace of upward income mobility. The Census data from 1967 to 2004 provides the percentage of families that fall within various income ranges, starting at $0 to $5,000, $5,000 to $10,000, and so on, up to over $100,000 (all numbers here are adjusted for inflation). These data show, for example, that in 1967 only one in 25 families earned an income of $100,000 or more in real income, whereas now, one in six do. The percentage of families that have an income of more than $75,000 a year has tripled from 9% to 27%."
"But it's not just the rich that are getting richer. Virtually every income group has been lifted by the tide of growth in recent decades. The percentage of families with real incomes between $5,000 and $50,000 has been falling as more families move into higher income categories -- the figure has dropped by 19 percentage points since 1967. This huge move out of lower incomes and into middle- and higher-income categories shows that upward mobility is the rule, not the exception, in America today."
"The middle class has not been "shrinking" or losing ground, it has been getting richer. For example, the Census data indicate that the income cutoff to be considered "middle class" has risen steadily. Back in 1967, the income range for the middle class (i.e., the middle-income quintile) was between $28,000 and $39,500 a year (in today's dollars). Now that income range is between $38,000 and $59,000 a year, which is to say that the middle class is now roughly $11,000 a year richer than 25 to 30 years ago. This helps explain why middle-income families can buy things like cable TV, air conditioning, DVD players, cell phones, second cars and so on, that were considered mostly luxury items for the rich in the 1950s and '60s." "The upper-middle class is also richer. Those falling within the 60th to 80th percentile in family income have an income range today of between $55,000 and $88,000 a year, which is about $24,000 a year higher than in 1967. This rapid upward income mobility indicates that the great American Dream, in which each generation achieves a higher living standard than their parents, is alive and well."
The Great American Dream Machine
I copied the relevant text of the article in case you do not have a subscription. Real household median net worth is also at an all time high. I can link you to that information if you'd like.