Please don't make the mistake of believing the unemployment rate is a good measure of, you know, actual employment. It's really a measure of employment change. Over the past several decades it's become more of a political tool than an economic indicator. GDP is another statistic that's been altered to serve a political narrative. People are becoming re-acquainted with the fact that core inflation doesn't capture the inflation you're experiencing in your actual bills.

What's the old saying? Figures don't lie but liars figure? Like I said, the liars have been working on these figures literally for decades now. I think we've been covering up the damage brought about by Nixon's unilateral dismantling of the Bretton Woods Agreement.

How has GDP been altered?

It used to be the production of durable goods produced in the United States. The first change during the Reagan administration was to include certain services. The hot topic of the day was whether a strong service economy was economically the same as a strong manufacturing economy.

The second change I believe was made during the first Bush administration and that was to include in the U.S. GDP those goods manufactured abroad so long as they were manufactured by American corporations or American-owned corporations. Suddenly the manufacturing GM was doing in Mexico and Ford was doing in Canada counted as U.S. GDP. The reason given for this change was the manufacture of goods that contributed to the bottom line of American corporations listed on American markets improve the health of American markets and thus the American economy. Critics pointed out this hid the amount of American manufacturing being moved overseas.

We can debate back and forth whether these changes are reasonable but one thing is clear - when comparing historical GDP numbers you're necessarily comparing apples to apples.

That's the median, which means half are making below that. And let's look at the half above it. This is the median, so much of those people live in big cities. Big cities with high cost of living.

"The average monthly expenses among all households totaled $5,253, or $63,036 annually. That's up 3% from 2018."

That's not much of a margin for error or opportunity for savings. If you're dual-income, child care will eat up the entire second income. Most couples I know having children these days have one parent quit their job and stay home, even if they were in an otherwise lucrative field such as software and especially if they're in anything else such as teaching, retail, warehouse, etc.

You're comparing the average expenses to the median income, which isn't the right measure. You're also comparing average household expenses to individual income.

But let's assume you weren't. $1300 per week adds up to $5,633 per month. If you're comparing that to average monthly expenses of $5,253, that means the average household has $400 left over per month. That's a savings rate of around 7%, which is actually higher than the measured U.S. average of about 3%.