For Many, a Boom That Wasn’t
[Quote:]
In 2000, at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau’s inflation-adjusted numbers. In 2007, in what looks to have been the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, seems to have made less — about $60,500.
This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records. In every other expansion since World War II, the buying power of most American families grew while the economy did. You can think of this as the most basic test of an economy’s health: does it produce ever-rising living standards for its citizens?
April 10th, 2008 at 17:04
I don’t know for sure but I think what also happened was a greater concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer people than ever in history (or ever in a boom cycle). Something like 5% of the population now has 90% of the world’s wealth (?).