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I saw an article recently where Paul Krugman came to the same conclusion. He didn't bother to explain how it is, 33 years later, that we're able to afford much larger homes with all sorts of upgrades our parents never dreamed of. He also didn't explain how it is that we have more cars, appliances, vacations, recreation vehicles, clothing, meals out, wealth etc. then we did in 1973. I guess all that wealth is just a figment of our imagination since the real median incomes of male workers hasn't increased since 1973.

You seem to be saying that it is mathematically impossible for total wealth to be increasing at the same time that the real median incomes of male workers are stagnating. Surely you know that this is false. Why do we look at both wealth and income if both move perfectly in tandem? Why do we bother looking at income growth per quintile if the income of each quintile always increase at the same rate?

Like me, Reynolds believes that real consumption per capita is a better measure of our increased living standards. Since 1973, he says our real consumption per capita has doubled. How can it double if our real per-capita wages aren't increasing?

Once again, per-capita consumption and per-capita wages are two different things. And what convinces you that either of them precisely tracks the real median income of male workers?

I've previoulsy linked you to Stephen Moore's article on income and wealth growth in this country since 1967. His findings should be repeated here:

I don't recall you linking it before. In any case, it does no good to link Wall Street Journal articles whose full content requires a subscription to read unless you're planning to give me a guest subscription for Christmas! :)

No way all this good news is possible if per-capita income for men, or any other demographic for that matter, has remained stagnant since 1973. For you to be right, all these guys have to be wrong, the household and median wealth numbers have to be fraudulent and all those cars, houses and toys we own today, along with the $4 trillion in capitals gains we've cashed in since 1997, have to be a cruel hoax being inflicted upon us by our overactive imaginations.

Once again the whole point of this thread is the GAP in incomes not the decline of ALL incomes. It's possible for the Census, BLS, and other figures given here to all be basically correct. Regardless of whether the wages of certain segments of the population are increasing, stagnant, or decreasing, most of the figures that I've seen are in agreement that there is a widening gap in income, even when looking at households (rather than individuals). For example, the following graph shows the increase in household income since 1967 for each quintile and the top 5 percent:

The actual numbers and sources are at http://home.att.net/~rdavis2/income.html. As can be seen, the top quintile separated noticeably from the other quintiles in the mid-eighties. This separation is in agreement with most all data that I've seen on the subject.