1. Almost stagnant means that they did not increase their % of wealth - their wealth increased.
2. Focusing on income ignores the plummeting costs of goods, what they can buy is much better and more plentiful than they could in the 70s.
>Focusing on income ignores the plummeting costs of goods, what they can buy is much better and more plentiful than they could in the 70s.
Actually the most important good, a house, is much more expensive to buy/rent than in the 60s/70s.
There were times when a middle class family with one working member could afford a house and send the kid to college without huge debt - something near impossible now even with 2 working members.
As for goods, those are hardly a compensation, if people work crazy hours, with stagnant pay, and get less share of _their_ society's wealth (their current society's, not compared to 20, 30 or 1000 years ago, which is what matters. We don't compare ourselves with medieval serfs or cavemen to see if we're doing OK, and we don't pat ourselves in the back in 2019 if we live in a trailer park because we have electricity and some rich person in 1800 wouldn't).
So, yeah, thanks to cheap foreign manufacturing one can have more stuff (just not the important stuff, like house and healthcare and education and better job conditions).
Agreed, healthcare, education, and housing -- the three most regulated and corrupt industries have grown at an accelerated rate. The are hurting people -- they are caused by unlimited loans (education), corruption/bureaucracy/regulation (healthcare), and housing (government regulation/zoning). These have nothing to do with income and production, but instead are caused by poor governing policies and regulation.
Also goods, e.g. electronics, media, communication, food, are of a higher quality than they were in the 70s -- a substantial qualitative difference that is hard to measure and compare over time.
I don't think you understand how US salaries compare to European ones, it's not even close.