The rise in income recorded almost directly tracks the entry of women into the workforce which is why the article explicitly mentions household income. The ave

The rise in income recorded almost directly tracks the entry of women into the workforce which is why the article explicitly mentions household income. The average middle class wage earner has not seen a pay raise in a long time, and thus his wife has had to start working in order to make due in the face of rising energy, health care, and education costs. The article is a classic example of lying by omission. It would be like saying household incomes dropped precipitously in the late 1800s after government started regulating factories, without mentioning that the regulation was banning child labor, thus removing the income brought in by your 12 year old son working at the mill. This article instead casts the last several decades of neo-liberal trade and economic policies as having greatly increased household incomes, without ever mentioning the fact that now twice as many people in the household have had to start working in order to keep pace with the economy. On an individual level, the one that matters, the middle class has been boned for several decades now. Edit: Trade policies are neo-liberal as pointed out by eli_gottlieb. Thanks for the head's up!