Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over (LES1252881600Q)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
>It seems to be a "crime is on the rise" situation; a 50% gain after a 50% drop doesn't get you back to 100.
The statistics are recording absolute numbers, not "50% gain after a 50% drop".
So, a number of problems:
>Since 1979. The drop you see at the beginning of the chart is the tail end of a plunge in the 70s as productivity decoupled from wages. This is where the "gain after a drop" is an issue: we are slightly up from rates that were massively down (and not shown on this chart). Then we see stagnation within a ~15% band until just before the start of the pandemic, where there is a dramatic spike that's already regressing.
>CPI-weighted. CPI is flawed: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012915/what-are-som... Many of the increased costs are not reflected.
What "plunge" are you talking about? Even the famous (but flawed) graph from epi shows a very small dip: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSDmFnp.... Also that was in the 80s, not the 70s as you claimed.
>Then we see stagnation within a ~15% band until just before the start of the pandemic, where there is a dramatic spike that's already regressing
Again, im not understanding how this could be an issue when the chart is using absolute numbers. If it dips a little then returns to previous levels that does not cause a "50% gain after a 50% drop doesn't get you back to 100" situation because the graph isn't using percentage change.
> Many of the increased costs are not reflected.
Which specific components do you have issue with? Moreover, the cpi is supposed to represent the country as a whole, so depending on your life situation your true living costs will either be lower or higher than expected. College tuition makes up about 1% of CPI, but if you're a student it's probably your top 3 expense. That's fine, because it's canceled out by all the Americans that aren't in college. The same applies for housing. If you're just moving out and have to find an apartment at market rates you might think the CPI isn't accurately capturing housing costs, but keep in mind that most Americans own their homes and therefore aren't paying market rents.
https://www.epi.org/publication/americas-slow-motion-wage-cr...
Again, growth is overstated because CPI is flawed and tends to understate the actual growth of cost burdens. So the "slow growth" mentioned here is people losing ground.
> If it dips a little then returns to previous levels
That's the problem: it didn't. Your assertion that it did is based on an unnecessarily limited data window. Zoom out, and you'll see a declining standard of living and a lowered ability for Americans to take their wages and buy durable goods (colloquial denotation). The declining birth and home-ownership rates for younger generations compared to older ones at the same age did not just come out of nowhere, and the general increase in debt load is part of the answer to why the entire thing hasn't collapsed yet.
>Which specific components do you have issue with? Moreover, the cpi is supposed to represent the country as a whole
The link went over many, and I would hope that you'd have read it and not asked that question. But, as a general gripe: its basic nature as an index makes it game-able, and the people who make the decisions about what goes into it have a conflict of interest: they answer to the people who answer to voters (more likely to be older, monied, white), and the people who can pay for votes. You might say that it's a coincidence that it then tends to show less of a crisis in income and purchasing power than many (younger, poorer, not white) feel exists, but I'm not so naive.