This is the central contention of the Brooks' article. And yes, if you consider "lower than they were five years ago" up, then yes, real wages are up. But I don't imagine most people think like that. And as Brad DeLong notes, ask yourself why we're looking at real average wages, rather than the median wage. Could it be because "averages include--and give high weight to--what is going on at the top of the income distribution?" I imagine so. Here's how Daniel Gross explains the difference:
If Goldman, Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein gets a $54 million bonus, and 53,999,999 other workers get nothing, then on average, 54 million people have received a $1 bonus. In reality, however, only one person has more money in his pocket. Crudely speaking, that's what has been happening in the U.S. economy.
Now why would David Brooks want to use such an inaccurate and even misleading measure? Particularly when median household income shows a 3% fall between 2000 and 2004? And has completely divorced itself from productivity gains? Doesn't Brooks find any of that worth mentioning?
