For the bottom 50% of earners, real wages are more or less the same now as they were in 1970. They went up for a bit from the 90s to 08, but they are back at 19

For the bottom 50% of earners, real wages are more or less the same now as they were in 1970. They went up for a bit from the 90s to 08, but they are back at 1970 levels now. Because wages have recently fallen, people in this group feel very poor right now. For the top 50% of earners (increasing the closer to the top you get), real wages have increased a lot since the 1970s. Between 1940 and 1985, most people were able to save about 5% of their income. Between 1985 and 2012, this decreased to become negative (i.e. most people live on debt). Medical care, education, and energy have increased in cost several times over since 1970, and these costs are not captured in the real wages I quoted. It may be these costs explain why people have a lower disposable income, demonstrated by decreased savings rate.