[Popman]

In 2004, the median income for a man in his 30s, which is a good predictor of his lifetime earnings, was $35,010, the study says, 12 percent less than for men in their 30s in 1974 — their fathers' generation — adjusted for inflation.

Two things come to mind.

1. The generation they are comparing this generation earned their money during the 80's. The most prolific longest economic boom in generations

2. They are comparing mens income rather than household income. With the advent of the working mother, dad is not available to make as much money as he possibly could, picking up household, child rearing duties.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

In 2004, the median income for a man in his 30s, which is a good predictor of his lifetime earnings, was $35,010, the study says, 12 percent less than for men in their 30s in 1974 — their fathers' generation — adjusted for inflation.

The headline talks about fathers and sons, but the "median income for a man in his 30s" sampled 30 years ago and today is not necessarily exactly the same sample. How many illegal immigrants who weren't qualified by background to immigrate legally are in the sample?

The other issue is whether inflation has been overestimated.

[GregoryFul]

I think that the point of the article is that wages for typical employed Americans has declined in real terms over the past twenty to thirty years. That seems pretty apparent to me. Younger people coming into the S/W engineering profession do not earn the inflation adjusted pay that I received in the early 80’s at the start of my career. Not only that, my pay hasn’t kept up with inflation - gauging by my home price, over the years, despite lots of years of experience and productivity improvements in my work. So I’ve been given to giving less and less of a damn.

My highly paid bosses want a computer program - let them do it themselves. Ha!

[syriacus]

With the advent of the working mother, dad is not available to make as much money as he possibly could, picking up household, child rearing duties.

This makes sense to me.

[okie01]

It's possible that the movement of women into the labor force has affected male earnings, and it's possible that men are not working as hard as they used to."

Possible? Possible???!!!

Of course, the movement of women into the work force has had a huge effect on wages. Effectively double the work force and wage growth is going to be impacted.

Notwithstanding, this piece proves that while individual men's incomes may have declined, household income for two wage earner families has probably doubled over the same period.