I don’t see any stats on how many dual-income households there are over the years. I don’t know if that would only count married couples or co-habitors.
This article, though, shows basically the same thing based on individual wages that the other one I linked showed on households. Basically, after inflation, we’re earning about the same as we did in the early ‘70s.
If you don’t think our educational system is a big part of the reason it’s not better, then I would say you’re naive. Anyone who is able to go a good school as a child and get a good education in a useful higher education major will go well beyond this median. If you don’t do that, you will lag behind. And we have many people who are not getting a good education, as our public schools rank poorly on the world stage.
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2012/05/two-income-households-mean-and-median.html
In fact, in real terms the average wage peaked more than 40 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 has the same purchasing power as $22.41 would today. [2012]
Sigh, are you really really trying to argue that the US is not largely a 2 income household nation compared to a the single income household of the 1970s, there is little point in continuing this conversation because you are in denial, well under 10% of all households are married couples with single incomes, in the 70s this was in the 80-90% when you filtered out retired folks.
Today the typical household is double income, and the median household income is virtually the same as it was in the 70s, so we as a nation are being robbed blind, and have been for decades. It takes 2 people working on average to make the same actual wealth per year as it did 40 years ago.. if you think otherwise you really need to look around.
I am not saying folks shouldn’t get an education, but that’s not the problem with our economy today. The system has been destroyed and wealth has been given away by the oligarchy who care not about America but only themselves.