1. Comparing wages over long periods of time makes no sense at all from an economic/statistical standpoint. Instead, total compensation should be included in all of these comparisons. If a worker who earned $50,000 five years ago is earning $51,000 today, his "wages" have grown only 2% over that period of time and he's basically lost ground to inflation. But if his employer-paid benefits have increased from $4,000 to $8,000 in that same period of time, then he's actually earning $5,000 more today than he was back then -- a 10% increase.
2. "Household income" is one of the most misleading statistical measures used in political economics these days. The single most important factor in the "stagnation" or "decline" of household income over the years has been the reduction in average household size, and in the number of income-producing workers per household. This is mainly a function of two things: a) a steep increase in the number single-parent families (which explains why most of the "stagnation" in household income occurs at low-income levels where single parenthood is more common); and b) retirees living independently for longer periods of time after they retire.
And it the cost of the benefit, such as health insurance, has doubled, has his compensation increased or is his increase due to inflation?
your trend #2 is changing now - more and more, I see households with more then two wage earners. extended families are making a comeback, because it takes 3,4,5 workers in the service industries to make ends meet. I see the new families moving into long island - forget two working parents, that was already the norm years ago. now its working parents, plus an adult child that works, a sister/aunt or brother/uncle in the household, a grandparent bringing in social security or pension money.
sure, there is a "bubble" out there of americans entering retirement now, who worked when wages and pensions were "fat" in the US, and those well heeled seniors are living it up. but right behind them, we have a demographic time bomb headed towards retirement. a time bomb of corporate workers who are seeing pension and retirement benefits stripped away by US corporations at an alarming rate (I am one of them), and who are not going to have anywhere near the retirement experience of americans who are current 60+ years of age. I'll be lucky to avoid working at McDonalds in my "golden years" at the rate I'm going.