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> The average person born in 1990 has a higher average real wage than their parents did

Mean, yes, median, less so.

> but mean statistics point to a wealthier American population at all levels today than any time before.

“mean statistics” don't tell you anything about “at all levels”, and are misleading because of the increasing top-heaviness of the distribution.




> Mean, yes, median, less so

Median quite so [1]. Every class of American is getting richer, just not as fast as the ultra-rich.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N/


That's household income, not wages, and not comparing like age groups across time (because of population aging.) So it doesn't support the above claim about real wages for those born in 1990 vs. their parents being true when shifted from mean to median.

Even leaving aside that outside of abject, starvation-level poverty, relative deprivation is a bigger contributor to disutility than absolute deprivation, such that everyone getting richer in absolute terms but the already rich getting rich faster would actually be a bad thing even if true.




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