The telling plots are figures 2&3, which show wages as stagnant, but not falling during the 2008-10 recession. That is because it plots the wages of those who

The telling plots are figures 2&3, which show wages as stagnant, but not falling during the 2008-10 recession. That is because it plots the wages of those who are working (full time?) and does not account for employment loss or underemployment. The employment to population ratio has fallen 5-6% over the same time period (and 10% from its peak) . It may be recovering somewhat now, but it's not part of the charts and not close to the peak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio Worse still, comparing to household income, you see that a higher employment ratio is necessary just to maintain the income. That causes childcare, prepared food, and transportation expenses to rise faster than inflation... because even if prices are constant, more people need them. That's ignoring the falling percentage of jobs with insurance and pensions that that also reduce total compensation... it also ignores stock options.