Average wages are just that the average of wages. A person's zero wage is not a wage to be averaged in becuase then we'd have to consider the zero wages of children, of livestock, of the dead --it could go on and on. Yeah, lots of folks say we need to care about the unemployed. Others say we need to care about the starving children in Biafra and let's not forget the ozone hole either.
Reality is something that has to be taken on its own terms and that's why we accept the fact that the average of the wages that there were went up in '09. Sure, incomes went down so that's why we see a dip in '09 for average incomes (post 19). Apparently we got lots of Freepers who really really want things to be bad and they just can't bear the thought that into every rainstorm a little sun must shine.
I agree average wages should be the average of all, including those who have been frozen out. Look at this from the perspective that the potential for economic activity is the aggregate of the average wage times the number of people of people actually making that wage.
It seems you believe that if one person out of 180 million working age people in America was working, and that person made one million dollars, the average wage of working people would be one million dollars and that we should celebrate because we’re all rich!
This is just another example of people selectively using statistics to obfuscate the big picture.