[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2023/feb/nominal-w...
According to one historical physician earnings survey [1]:
> During 1987-1990, median earnings for physicians were $143,963 (interquartile range, 96,718-175,850) compared with $157,751 (IQR, 101,279-203,281) during 2006-2010 ($13,788 increase or growth of 9.6%; P < .001).
If we take the most conservative time interval (1990 to 2006) and plug it into the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator [2] we see that the median 1990 physician wage would be equal to 224,080 in 2006 dollars.
Median physician wages as of now are $229,300 (2022) according to the BLS [3] or $255,200 (2020) according to the US Center for Economic Studies [4]. Plug that into the CPI inflation calculator, and the 1990s median amounts to $291,509 in 2020 dollars. So yes, physicians have seen a sizable decline in real wages over the last 30 years. Americans overall saw a significant uptick in real wages in the same time period.
Also, when discussing physician compensation, it's important to remember that there is a very heavy rightward skew. Mean wages are not representative of the typical physician. According to the CES report [2], the mean physician wage is $343,600, while the median is $255,200. This is why you will see dramatically different "average" numbers on physician wages in different outlets -- you should always check if it is a mean or a median.
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1456053
[2] https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=143%2C963.00&y...
[3] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physicians-and-surgeons.h...
[4] https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2020/CES-WP-20-23.pdf
[5] https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=143%2C963.00&y...