Take a look at the median US household income over the last 40 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...
Median household income can mean two parents are working...
Take a look at inflation adjusted wage growth for a singular person over time.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2...
Good catch.
So apparently the fed allowing inflation rates to increase is also paralleled by wage increases somehow? I'm guessing due to the stimulation of the economy by the inflation?
That would have been insane a few decades earlier, and it's not just because of improving third world countries, but also because as you said the noose tightened - everything became more expensive, especially rent, working hours increased, two salaries became necessary, etc..
A dollar is presently worth half as much as in 1990. A 100,000 a year job in 1990 is equivalent to a 50,000 a year nowdays.
Every year the noose gets slightly tighter, the slack is slightly reduced, the competition is slightly increased, society become slightly more cutthroat, people are forced to do slightly crazier and crazier things to make ends meet and sacrifice their morals just a little bit more, work just a few more hours to make the same money.
Then new generations are born into a world that's much more competitive than their parents world 20 years previous, and start out thinking this level of competitiveness and craziness is normal.
And the water in the frog pot inter-generationally continues to get hotter.
We're literally on a slow unstoppable pathway to a third world country and no one even realizes it.
Or possibly creating the conditions for war.