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by pashamur 1627 days ago
Note that this is showing household incomes, not individual incomes. Household used to mean 1 working family member, now it's closer to 2 due in large part by more women joining the workforce. If you had a traditional family with one working spouse, they would definitely be falling behind.

If you look at the source below for men's wages (for example), the real wage has fallen by 3% for the median male since 1979 (and by 10% real decline for the bottom 10%). That's not even accounting for the fact that housing should make up a higher % of the consumption basket for the lowest-paid workers (as compared to CPI).

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45090.pdf

1 comments

That link appears to be great data (based on reading the summary). Bookmarked to read in more detail later, but saying "thanks!" now.

It appears that the 10th percentile male income has decreased by 7.7% [rather than 10%] in the 40 year period from 1979-2019, if I'm reading the page 4 content correctly.

Figure 1 is facsinating - it shows the 80s were awful for everyone, especially the bottom 10%. Male workers dropped 16.3% from 1979-1990, and Hispanic dropped 20.9%!

2010-2019 was the best real income growth for all groups apart from top 10% hispanics, and the growth is fairly evenly spread across demographics.