By YUVAL ROSENBERG, The Fiscal Times:
Median household incomes adjusted for inflation fell 1.5 percent to $50,054. That’s 8.1 percent lower than it had been in 2007, the year before the recession, and almost 9 percent lower than the peak income level reached in 1999. The last time median household income was lower was 1995 – meaning it’s been a lost decade and a half for Americans looking to get ahead.
The gross domestic product has gone from $7.4 trillion to $15.1 trillion in current-dollar terms over that time, suggesting that families have fallen behind even as the economy has expanded.
and that is precisely the problem. The US economy will only achieve a sustained turn around when there is real growth in wages. The reason is that the US economy is 70% consumer driven and as long as household’s share of the cake keeps falling government will have to step in and fill the gap with borrowing to keep the economy ticking over.
Agreed