Remember, these charts include health insurance premiums in "health costs", but don't include employer health insurance premium contributions in "wages". This is a problem.
Health care costs are a huge problem but they're not so big that they're actually reducing real wages overall.
Here are real median personal income, real median weekly earnings for full-time employees, and real hourly compensation.
Here are real median personal income, real median weekly earnings for full-time employees, and real hourly compensation.
Those three measures are all different, but together they give a good indication of individual income after the costs of health care, housing, education, transport, and a bunch of other things are taken into account.
None has gone up by nearly enough. But all have gone up.
None has gone up by nearly enough. But all have gone up.
We have a general STAGNATION in living standards, meaning that living standards are still going up, but not nearly as fast as before, and not as fast as they should be (thanks to rising inequality).
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