Wissensbasis / Was verloren ging
Real Wages, Debt, and Purchasing Power: 1971 to 2026
The CPI says inflation has averaged about 4 percent a year since 1971 and is “back near 2 percent” today. The household balance sheet says something very different. This page measures the gap, in primary data, in the only currency a worker actually spends, hours of life.
1. Why time-to-buy is the only honest measure
Money is a unit of account, but the worker does not earn money, the worker earns hours. An hour worked yesterday and an hour worked today are commensurable. A 1971 dollar and a 2026 dollar are not. Every official inflation index is a basket choice, a hedonic adjustment, a substitution rule. Time-to-buy collapses all of that into a single number: at the median wage, how many hours, weeks, or years of work does it take to acquire the thing.
If wages and prices both doubled, time-to-buy is unchanged and the worker is no poorer. If prices tripled while wages doubled, time-to-buy rose 50 percent and the worker is poorer no matter what the CPI prints. The metric is robust against index methodology because it cancels the unit of account.
The rest of this page applies that metric to the goods households actually need: a store of value, food, shelter, education, healthcare. Then we look at what filled the gap when the metric went the wrong way: debt.
2. Time-to-buy: 1971 versus 2024 to 2026
2.1 Gold
In August 1971, US median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers were about 142 USD per week, roughly 3.55 USD per hour at 40 hours (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey historical tables) [1]. The official US Treasury price of gold on 14 August 1971, the day before Nixon closed the gold window, was 35 USD per troy ounce [2].
In Q1 2026, BLS series LES1252881600Q (median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers, 16 years and over, second quartile, current dollars) prints around 1,200 USD per week, roughly 30 USD per hour [3]. London PM gold fix during the same window has traded in a 2,600 to 2,900 USD range per troy ounce; we use 2,800 USD as a round mid-figure [4].
| Year | Median hourly wage (USD) | Gold price per oz (USD) | Hours of median wage to buy 1 oz gold |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | 3.55 | 35 | 9.9 |
| 2026 | 30.00 | 2,800 | 93.3 |
Sources: BLS CPS historical [1]; US Treasury [2]; FRED LES1252881600Q [3]; LBMA [4].
The median hour of US labour buys 9.4 times less gold in 2026 than it did the day before the gold window closed. If gold is a constant store of value over centuries, which is the historical claim, this is the size of the unit of account problem the CPI is hiding.
2.2 Big Mac
The Economist’s Big Mac Index begins in 1986. At launch the US Big Mac cost 1.60 USD; the comparable median hourly wage was about 8.20 USD per hour (BLS, 1986 weekly median 327 USD divided by 40) [5][1]. In January 2025 The Economist’s index put the US Big Mac at 5.79 USD; median hourly wage approximately 30 USD [6][3].
| Year | Big Mac (USD) | Median hourly wage (USD) | Minutes of median wage per Big Mac |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | 1.60 | 8.20 | 11.7 |
| 2025 | 5.79 | 30.00 | 11.6 |
Sources: The Economist Big Mac Index [6]; BLS CPS [1][5]; FRED [3].
The Big Mac is the most often cited example of “see, things are basically fine,” and at the median wage in time terms, it is. This is exactly why the Big Mac is the wrong basket. A Big Mac is not what eats a household budget. Housing, healthcare, and education are.
2.3 The median home
The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard reports the US median home price-to-median household income ratio at roughly 3.1 in 1971, rising to 5.6 by 2022 [7]. The Atlanta Fed’s Home Ownership Affordability Monitor calculates that the share of median household income required to own the median priced home has crossed 45 percent at the national median, well above the 30 percent affordability threshold and at the worst level recorded since the series began in 2006 [8]. Joint Center 2024 reports the national price-to-income ratio at 5.6 with the median sale price at 412,300 USD against median household income of 74,580 USD [7].
Reconstructing across the full period:
| Year | Median home sale price (USD) | Median household income (USD) | Price-to-income ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | 25,200 | 9,030 | 2.8 |
| 1985 | 84,300 | 23,620 | 3.6 |
| 2000 | 169,000 | 41,990 | 4.0 |
| 2010 | 221,800 | 49,440 | 4.5 |
| 2024 | 412,300 | 80,610 | 5.1 |
Sources: Census, Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States (FRED MSPUS) [9]; Census Historical Income Tables H-08 [10]; Joint Center for Housing Studies [7].
Note that the headline 7 to 8x figure cited in some markets (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, San Diego) is real at the metro level. The 5.1 figure above is the conservative national median. Either way the trend is a structural break, not a cycle.
The 1971 worker who saved 25 percent of pre-tax income paid off the median home in roughly 11 years of saving. The 2024 worker doing the same takes roughly 21 years.
2.4 A four-year college degree
NCES Digest of Education Statistics tracks total annual cost of attendance at degree-granting institutions [11].
| Year | Average annual total cost, public 4-year (current USD) | Median household income (USD) | Years of median household income for 4-year degree |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | 1,357 | 9,030 | 0.60 |
| 1985 | 3,859 | 23,620 | 0.65 |
| 2000 | 8,439 | 41,990 | 0.80 |
| 2024 | 24,920 | 80,610 | 1.24 |
Sources: NCES Digest, Table 330.10 [11]; Census H-08 [10].
A four-year public degree consumed about 7 months of median household income in 1971 and consumes about 15 months in 2024. The figure for private institutions is far worse: about 18 months in 1971, about 4.5 years in 2024.
The CPI college tuition subindex is up roughly 13x since 1980 against a general CPI up roughly 3.4x over the same window [12]. The cost of a degree has therefore risen roughly 4 times faster than general inflation, and the financing burden has shifted onto the student through federally guaranteed loans, of which more in section 6.
2.5 Healthcare
CMS National Health Expenditure data tracks per capita health spending [13].
| Year | Per capita health spending (USD) | Median household income (USD) | Share of median income |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | 384 | 9,030 | 4.3% |
| 1985 | 1,725 | 23,620 | 7.3% |
| 2000 | 4,855 | 41,990 | 11.6% |
| 2010 | 8,414 | 49,440 | 17.0% |
| 2024 | 14,570 | 80,610 | 18.1% |
Sources: CMS NHE Historical Tables [13]; Census H-08 [10].
The median household now spends, in aggregate including the employer-paid share and tax-funded portion, almost a fifth of equivalent income on healthcare. In 1971 the figure was 4 percent. Hospital services in the BLS PPI are up roughly 6x since 1980 against the headline CPI’s 3.4x [12]. Health insurance premium growth has compounded at roughly 5 percent per year against wage growth around 3 percent per year (Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits Survey) [14].
3. Real wages, official and reconstructed
3.1 Official BLS real wages
FRED series LES1252881600Q reports median usual weekly real earnings of full-time wage and salary workers in 1982 to 1984 CPI-U dollars [3]. Selected quarter-end values:
| Date | Real median weekly earnings (1982 to 1984 USD) |
|---|---|
| Q1 1979 | 348 |
| Q1 1990 | 333 |
| Q1 2000 | 339 |
| Q1 2010 | 350 |
| Q1 2020 | 372 |
| Q1 2024 | 365 |
| Q1 2026 | 368 |
Source: FRED LES1252881600Q [3].
Across 47 years and several productivity revolutions (semiconductors, internet, mobile, cloud, AI) the median full-time worker’s real weekly earnings have risen by single-digit percent. That is what flat looks like.
3.2 Reconstructed under pre-1980 CPI methodology
The CPI methodology was substantially rewritten between 1980 and 1999. The largest revisions were the Boskin Commission changes of 1996 (geometric mean weighting, hedonic adjustments, ownership-equivalent rent for housing, expanded substitution assumptions) [15]. John Williams of ShadowStats reconstructs CPI under the pre-1980 methodology and the pre-1990 methodology and publishes both alongside the official CPI-U [16].
ShadowStats’ reconstructed CPI runs roughly 5 to 7 percentage points per year above CPI-U from the late 1990s onward. Compounded over 25 years that is the difference between a 2.5x price level and a roughly 5x to 7x price level. We do not endorse the ShadowStats series as ground truth, but the adjustments it captures (housing-as-rent, substitution downgrading, hedonic deflation) are real methodology changes documented by BLS itself.
Reconstructed under the pre-1980 methodology, the same nominal wage series that prints flat under CPI-U prints as a real decline of roughly 30 to 50 percent for the median full-time worker since 1973. The median worker is not roughly stagnant since the early Reagan years. The median worker is substantially poorer in everything that matters.
The conservative reading: official methodology says flat. Any reasonable reconstruction that gives housing, healthcare, and education their actual share of household budgets says down. There is no methodology that says up.
4. The productivity-pay gap
The Economic Policy Institute’s productivity-pay gap series, updated through 2024, decomposes the divergence between net productivity of the total economy and the hourly compensation of production and non-supervisory workers (about 80 percent of the workforce) [17].
| Period | Net productivity (cumulative) | Typical worker hourly compensation (cumulative) |
|---|---|---|
| 1948 to 1973 | +95.7% | +90.9% |
| 1973 to 2024 | +83.6% | +14.0% |
Source: EPI productivity-pay tracker, January 2025 update [17].
From 1948 to 1973 productivity and compensation moved together. From 1973 to 2024 productivity rose another 84 percent while typical worker compensation rose 14 percent. The cumulative gap from 1948 to 2024 is approximately 250 percent productivity growth against approximately 120 percent compensation growth.
The break point is 1973. The gold window closed in August 1971. We do not claim a single causal mechanism, but any honest analysis of the postwar wage compression must explain why the divergence begins exactly when the international monetary anchor is removed and credit creation is unconstrained.
The gap is the fingerprint. Productivity gains since 1973 have not flowed to wages. They have flowed to capital, to asset holders, and disproportionately to the top decile of the income distribution. Real wages held flat in CPI terms because credit creation, which we examine next, papered the gap between what the median household earns and what the median household needs to consume.
5. Household debt: filling the gap
Federal Reserve Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States, household and non-profit sector liabilities [18]. NY Fed Household Debt and Credit Report, quarterly composition [19].
5.1 Aggregate household debt
| Year | Total household debt (trillions USD) | Disposable personal income (trillions USD) | Debt as % of DPI |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | 0.49 | 0.84 | 58% |
| 1985 | 2.27 | 3.21 | 71% |
| 2000 | 6.96 | 7.40 | 94% |
| 2007 | 13.92 | 10.42 | 134% |
| 2012 | 12.81 | 12.50 | 102% |
| 2024 Q4 | 17.94 | 21.78 | 82% |
Sources: Fed Z.1 [18]; FRED DSPI [20]; NY Fed HHDCR [19].
The aggregate ratio peaked in 2007 at roughly 134 percent of disposable income, the level that triggered the global financial crisis. Post-crisis deleveraging dropped it back to around 100 percent. As of late 2024 the ratio is around 82 percent of DPI, which sounds healthier until you decompose it.
5.2 Composition of household debt
NY Fed HHDCR Q4 2024, total household debt 17.94 trillion USD [19]:
| Category | Q4 2024 (trillions USD) | Share | 2003 share for comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mortgage | 12.61 | 70.3% | 73% |
| Home equity revolving | 0.40 | 2.2% | 5% |
| Auto loan | 1.66 | 9.3% | 7% |
| Credit card | 1.21 | 6.7% | 8% |
| Student loan | 1.62 | 9.0% | 3% |
| Other | 0.55 | 3.1% | 4% |
Source: NY Fed HHDCR Q4 2024 [19].
Student debt has tripled as a share of household debt since 2003 and is now larger than credit card debt. Auto debt has risen from 7 to 9 percent and crossed 1.6 trillion USD on a stock of vehicles whose unit prices have outpaced wages by roughly 2x since 2000.
Medical debt does not appear directly in the NY Fed series because most of it is held by collection agencies, not banks. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates roughly 88 billion USD in medical collections on consumer credit reports as of 2022, and the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates total medical debt held by Americans at over 220 billion USD when including credit card balances and family loans used to pay medical bills [21][14].
The picture is a workforce whose real wages did not rise, paying for a price level that did, by borrowing.
6. Net worth distribution: where the productivity gains went
The Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts (DFA) decompose total household net worth by wealth percentile, quarterly back to 1989 Q3 [22]. Selected quarters:
| Quarter | Top 1% share | Next 9% share | 50th to 90th pct share | Bottom 50% share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 Q3 | 22.8% | 35.4% | 38.3% | 3.5% |
| 2000 Q1 | 27.0% | 35.5% | 34.3% | 3.2% |
| 2007 Q3 | 28.5% | 35.0% | 33.1% | 3.4% |
| 2012 Q1 | 28.9% | 38.5% | 31.6% | 1.0% |
| 2020 Q1 | 31.2% | 37.8% | 28.9% | 2.1% |
| 2024 Q3 | 30.8% | 37.6% | 28.9% | 2.4% |
Source: Federal Reserve DFA [22].
The top 1 percent’s share of national household net worth rose from roughly 23 percent in 1989 to roughly 31 percent in 2024, a gain of about 8 percentage points of total wealth, or in absolute terms about 12 trillion USD shifted toward that decile beyond what proportional growth would predict. The bottom 50 percent’s share has been pinned between 1 and 4 percent for the entire 35-year window despite covering 67 million households.
The top 1 percent threshold for net worth in 2024 is approximately 11.6 million USD. The bottom 50 percent of households together hold roughly 3.7 trillion USD in net worth out of a US household total of 156 trillion USD [22].
The productivity-pay gap of section 4 and the wealth distribution gap of section 6 are two views of the same data. Compensation that did not flow to workers flowed to owners of capital. Asset prices, particularly the prices of homes and equities, were repriced upward by decades of credit expansion and falling discount rates. Households that owned those assets in 1980 were recipients of the largest wealth transfer in postwar history. Households that had to acquire those assets after 1980 paid for it.
7. Two earners now do what one earner did
US female labour-force participation, BLS Current Population Survey [23]:
| Year | Female LFPR (16+) | Male LFPR (16+) | Share of married couples with both spouses working |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 33.9% | 86.4% | 24% |
| 1970 | 43.3% | 79.7% | 39% |
| 1990 | 57.5% | 76.4% | 58% |
| 2000 | 59.9% | 74.8% | 61% |
| 2024 | 57.5% | 67.7% | 63% |
Sources: BLS LFPR historical [23]; Pew Research Center, Working Couples [24].
A 1971 single-earner household at the median male wage of roughly 9,000 USD lived in a 25,000 USD home, sent a child to a 1,400 USD per year college, and bought 380 USD per year of healthcare per person. A 2024 dual-earner household at combined median income of roughly 80,600 USD lives in a 412,000 USD home, sends a child to a 25,000 USD per year college, and pays 14,500 USD per person per year in healthcare-equivalent spending.
Two incomes were not added because households became richer. Two incomes were added because one stopped being enough to buy what one used to buy. The female labour-force participation surge from 1965 to 2000 was structural, driven by genuine cultural change and improving opportunity, but the persistence of dual-earner households as the new norm reflects the affordability arithmetic above. The household substituted unpaid domestic labour for paid wage labour to keep up with the price level.
8. The housing crisis
8.1 The Shiller chart
Robert Shiller’s online dataset extends US housing prices back to 1890 in real, CPI-adjusted terms [25]. The famous chart shows real US home prices roughly flat from 1890 to 1995 with two excursions (the 1940s wartime suppression dip and the late 1980s spike), then a structural break upward.
Selected real-price index values, base 1890 = 100:
| Year | Real Shiller home price index (1890 = 100) |
|---|---|
| 1900 | 90 |
| 1940 | 81 |
| 1950 | 113 |
| 1970 | 113 |
| 1990 | 124 |
| 2000 | 130 |
| 2006 | 198 |
| 2012 | 132 |
| 2022 | 218 |
| 2024 | 200 |
Source: Robert Shiller, online data, Yale [25].
Real US home prices were essentially trendless for 100 years between 1890 and 1990. Since 1995 they are up roughly 60 percent in real terms with two violent cycles. The structural break is housing as financial asset rather than housing as consumption good. The mechanism is the credit channel: 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with falling real rates from 1981 to 2021 capitalised every basis point of rate decline into the principal that buyers could service, which is the price they could pay.
8.2 The price-to-income view
Already shown in section 2.3. The summary: a 2.8x ratio in 1971, a 5.1x national ratio in 2024, and 7x to 8x in coastal metros. The Atlanta Fed Home Ownership Affordability Monitor’s threshold of 30 percent of income is breached at the national median for new buyers [8].
9. Generational comparison
Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts, by birth cohort, with Census homeownership and NY Fed debt [22][26][19]:
| Cohort | Year cohort hit age 30 | Homeownership rate at age 30 | Real median household income at 30 (2024 USD) | Median net worth at 30 (2024 USD) | Student debt at 30 (2024 USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boomer | 1976 | 51% | 71,400 | 38,500 | ~0 |
| Gen X | 1991 | 47% | 70,200 | 31,000 | 8,300 |
| Millennial | 2011 | 36% | 65,500 | 18,200 | 23,800 |
| Gen Z | 2024 | 38% (est.) | 72,300 | 22,900 | 21,500 |
Sources: Census Historical Homeownership [26]; Fed DFA generational tables [22]; NY Fed [19]. Numbers approximate, reconstructed from cohort-age cuts of the underlying series.
The Millennial at 30 in 2011 had 47 percent of the net worth of the Boomer at 30 in 1976 in real terms, owned 30 percent less often, and carried roughly 24,000 USD of student debt that the Boomer cohort did not carry at all. Gen Z at 30 has recovered some of the homeownership and net-worth gap relative to Millennials due to a better-than-expected post-pandemic labour market, but is still roughly 40 percent behind the Boomer at 30 on net worth and roughly 13 percentage points behind on homeownership.
A 30-year-old in 2024 cannot buy what a 30-year-old in 1976 bought because the ratios on offer are not the same. The 1976 ratio was 2.8 to 3.0 home-to-income. The 2024 ratio is 5.1 to 8.0.
10. Healthcare as a share of GDP
CMS National Health Expenditure Accounts [13]:
| Year | Total NHE (% of GDP) | Per capita NHE (current USD) | Per capita NHE in 2024 USD |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | 5.0% | 146 | 1,540 |
| 1971 | 7.1% | 384 | 2,990 |
| 1980 | 8.9% | 1,108 | 4,260 |
| 1990 | 12.1% | 2,843 | 6,890 |
| 2000 | 13.3% | 4,855 | 8,930 |
| 2010 | 17.2% | 8,414 | 12,030 |
| 2024 | 17.6% | 14,570 | 14,570 |
Source: CMS NHE Historical Tables [13].
US healthcare spending grew from 5 percent of GDP in 1960 to over 17 percent in 2024. No other developed economy is above 13 percent. The OECD median is around 9 percent.
BLS PPI for hospital services and CPI for medical care confirm the structural divergence [12]:
- Hospital services PPI, January 1992 = 100, December 2024 = 379. Up 3.79x in 32 years against a CPI-U up 2.27x.
- Prescription drugs CPI subindex up 4.6x since 1980.
- Health insurance premiums (Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits) up 5.8x since 1999 against CPI-U up 1.95x [14].
Healthcare is the largest single line item driving the gap between official CPI and the price level a household actually faces.
11. Education
BLS CPI college tuition subindex, base December 1982 = 100, December 2024 ~ 1,431 [12]. Headline CPI-U over the same window 96.5 to 320, a factor of 3.32. College tuition has therefore outrun headline CPI by a factor of approximately 4.3 since 1982.
A 1971 student paid about 60 percent of a year of median household income for a year at a 4-year public institution, room and board included. A 2024 student pays about 124 percent for the same. The financing solution was federally guaranteed and federally held student loan debt, which now totals 1.62 trillion USD across roughly 43 million borrowers [19][27].
The economic effect of student debt at this scale: the median bachelor’s-degree holder graduating after 2010 enters their household-formation years (ages 25 to 34) with a balance-sheet liability that the equivalent 1980 graduate did not carry, equivalent to a substantial down payment on a starter home. This compounds the housing affordability problem of section 8.
12. Generation Permanent-Renter
US Census Housing Vacancy Survey, homeownership rate by age of householder [26]:
| Year | Under 35 | 35 to 44 | 45 to 54 | 55 to 64 | 65 and over | All |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | 41.2% | 70.0% | 77.4% | 80.0% | 74.4% | 64.8% |
| 1995 | 38.6% | 65.2% | 75.2% | 79.5% | 78.1% | 64.7% |
| 2005 | 43.0% | 69.3% | 76.6% | 81.2% | 80.6% | 68.9% |
| 2015 | 34.7% | 58.0% | 69.9% | 75.3% | 78.7% | 63.7% |
| 2024 | 38.0% | 61.4% | 70.7% | 75.4% | 79.2% | 65.6% |
Source: Census HVS Table 19 [26].
Under-35 homeownership in 2024 (38.0 percent) sits below 1982 (41.2 percent) and well below the peak in 2004 to 2005 (43 percent). For households in their early thirties the rate is the lowest in the postwar series. Without inheritance, the under-35 homeownership figure trails further still: roughly half of recent first-time buyers report parental down-payment assistance, a multi-decade high (Redfin, NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 2024) [28].
The cohort that does not own at 30 is unlikely to own at 40 because the down payment moves faster than savings, the price-to-income ratio worsens with each cycle, and household formation is delayed in response. Marriage rate, birth rate, and household-formation rate are all sliding in step (Census, CDC NCHS).
13. The squeeze in pictures
Combining the time-to-buy results of section 2 with the debt and net worth results of sections 5 and 6:
| Item | 1971 cost in hours of median wage | 2024 cost in hours of median wage | Multiplier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 oz gold | 9.9 | 93.3 | 9.4x |
| Big Mac (1986 vs 2025) | 11.7 min | 11.6 min | 1.0x |
| Year of public 4-year college | 382 | 831 | 2.2x |
| Year of healthcare per capita | 108 | 486 | 4.5x |
| Median home (years of median income) | 2.8 | 5.1 | 1.8x |
| Total household debt (trillions USD) | 0.49 | 17.94 | 36.6x |
| Top 1% net worth share | 22.8% (1989) | 30.8% (2024) | +8 pp |
| Bottom 50% net worth share | 3.5% (1989) | 2.4% (2024) | -1.1 pp |
| Female LFPR | 43.3% (1970) | 57.5% | +14 pp |
Sources as cited above. Hours of healthcare per capita uses median hourly wage; Big Mac is in minutes.
The “inflation has averaged 4 percent and is back to 2 percent” claim is consistent with the second row of this table (the Big Mac, food on the cheap end of the basket). It is not consistent with rows 1, 3, 4, and 5. It is incompatible with rows 6, 7, and 8.
The CPI is not lying in a strict accounting sense. It is measuring a specific, methodologically defined basket. The basket is no longer the basket the median household has to buy. Housing got swapped for owners-equivalent rent in 1983, healthcare was reweighted, education was reweighted, and substitution rules assume the consumer trades down when the price rises. The basket the median household actually faces, at the actual weights the median household actually pays, has compounded at substantially more than 2 to 4 percent per year since 1971.
The household closed the gap with debt, with second incomes, with delayed household formation, and with not-buying the things it used to buy. Each of those is a measured datapoint in this page. None of them shows up as inflation in the headline number.
This is the inflation since 1971. The page argues, and the data on this page support, that this outcome is not random, not cyclical, and not a story about “the cost of progress.” It is the predictable result of a fiat credit system in which the money unit is unconstrained, asset prices respond to credit expansion, and wages do not. The numbers above are the receipt.
Sources
[1] US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, Historical Median Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers, 1947 onward. https://www.bls.gov/cps/
[2] US Treasury, Historical Treasury Gold Reserves and Official Gold Price Schedule (Bretton Woods conversion price 35.00 USD/oz, 1934 to 1971). https://home.treasury.gov
[3] FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, LES1252881600Q, Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over, second quartile. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
[4] London Bullion Market Association, LBMA Gold Price PM Auction Historical Data, 2024 to 2026. https://www.lbma.org.uk
[5] BLS CPS Historical Earnings Tables, Annual Median Weekly Earnings 1979 onward, with 1986 reference. https://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpswktab1.htm
[6] The Economist, The Big Mac Index, January 2025 update; archive series since 1986. https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index
[7] Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, The State of the Nation’s Housing 2024. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/state-nations-housing-2024
[8] Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Center for Housing and Policy, Home Ownership Affordability Monitor. https://www.atlantafed.org/center-for-housing-and-policy/data-and-tools/home-ownership-affordability-monitor
[9] FRED, MSPUS, Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
[10] US Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables: Households, Table H-08, Median Household Income by State. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html
[11] National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, Table 330.10, Average undergraduate tuition and fees and room and board rates charged for full-time students. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/
[12] US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index Detailed Reports and Producer Price Index, including college tuition (CUUR0000SEEB01) and hospital services (PCU6221). https://www.bls.gov/cpi/
[13] Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, National Health Expenditure Data, Historical Tables. https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata
[14] Kaiser Family Foundation, Employer Health Benefits Annual Survey, 1999 onward. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/
[15] Boskin Commission, Toward a More Accurate Measure of the Cost of Living, Final Report to the Senate Finance Committee, December 1996. https://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/boskinrpt.html
[16] John Williams, ShadowStats Alternate CPI series, https://www.shadowstats.com
[17] Economic Policy Institute, The Productivity-Pay Gap, January 2025 update. https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
[18] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States, Households and Nonprofit Organizations Sector. https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/
[19] Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Center for Microeconomic Data, Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, Q4 2024. https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc
[20] FRED, DSPI, Disposable Personal Income. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPI
[21] Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Medical Debt Burden in the United States, March 2022. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-reports/medical-debt-burden-in-the-united-states/
[22] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Distributional Financial Accounts of the United States. https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/efa/efa-distributional-financial-accounts.htm
[23] BLS, Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, Historical Labor Force Participation Rates by Sex. https://www.bls.gov/cps/lfcharacteristics.htm
[24] Pew Research Center, Both Parents Working, Trends in Dual-Income Households 1960 to Present. https://www.pewresearch.org
[25] Robert J. Shiller, Online Data, Long-Term Stock, Bond, Interest Rate and Consumption Data, including US Home Prices since 1890. http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.htm
[26] US Census Bureau, Housing Vacancy Survey, Historical Tables 14, 15, 19. https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/histtabs.html
[27] US Department of Education, Federal Student Aid, Federal Student Loan Portfolio Summary. https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student/portfolio
[28] National Association of Realtors, Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 2024. https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/research-reports/highlights-from-the-profile-of-home-buyers-and-sellers