Well, let’s go to, not the videotape, but the data. If we look at the bottom two quintiles of household income, which is pretty much working stiff territory, we see that, in 1967, which was a pretty fat year, the top of the bottom quintile had an average of $17,663, compared to $20,262 in 2011, while for the top of the second quintile, it was $34,443 in ’67 and $38,520 in 2011 (using 2011 dollars for both 1967 and 2011). A lot of progress that isn’t, but if $17,663 was decent in 1967, why isn’t $20,262 decent in 2011? The shocking fact is—to use a tired trope that liberal economists hate and I love—goods and services today are far better, and far cheaper, than they were in the good old days. If you don’t believe me, try driving across Texas in August, first in a 1967 Chevy full-size Malibu (no AC, an AM radio with a three-inch speaker) and then, if you survive, make the trip back in a 2011 Hyundai (AC, CD/IPod seven-speaker sound).
It’s definitely true that life today is not as good as it was in the great year of 1999 ($23,130 and $43,086, respectively), at least in terms of sheer cash and financial security, thanks both to the Great Contraction and the monumental efforts of the Republican Party to make the Great C as prolonged, and as painful as possible, but what Paul really meant to say—or, rather, what he ought to have meant to say—is that the working stiff’s share of the pie has been shrinking, even as the size of the pie has been expanding (both in terms of income and the quality of the goods and services that can be purchased with that income). Household income for the top quintile has risen from $111,866 to $186,000, and as you go up to the top 10%, the top 5%, the top 1%, and the top 0.1%, the increases keep getting fatter. And that’s a problem. But “decent living standards” for the working class? We’ve still got them. In fact, they’re a lot more decent than they used to be.
