[El Cid]

I think it is also disingenuous to make the comparison to wages from 7 years ago -- at the peak of the dot-com Potemkin Village economy. Many people were overpaid at jobs that didn't really deserve to exist. We went through a very painful several year correction. The last few years have been good, which is why most workers are (or should be) content with the current economy. Trying to talk-down the current economy by comparing current wages to the peak of the dot-com era is just number juggling with the intent to mislead.

[oceanview]

those dotcom fantasy jobs were blown out of the system by the end of 2001. the steady offshoring by large cap US tech companies has continued unabated since then.

[.cnI redruM]

That's also an interesting point. It raises the question of whether the average real wage is cyclical or linear. I tend to think it has a cyclical nature, like almost any other economic variable.

I tend to think, however, Bartlett is so crudely anti-Bush that his choice of years is driven by no other criterion than picking a year Clinton was in office.