It is very-very hard to get paid like one did in the 90's anywhere. Even sports salaries are starting to come down. We were a far richer nation in the 90's.
If you are talking about personal income, that's false:
Personal income (in billions of dollars)
bea.gov (select 1993 -A&Q on pull down menu for "first year")
1993Q1: 5,419.5
1993Q2: 5,542.3
1993Q3: 5,579.6
1993Q4: 5,692.8
1994Q1: 5,668.9
1994Q2: 5,813.7
1994Q3: 5,891.0
1994Q4: 5,996.5
1995Q1: 6,072.3
1995Q2: 6,119.2
1995Q3: 6,174.6
1995Q4: 6,243.0
1996Q1: 6,371.1
1996Q2: 6,490.5
1996Q3: 6,566.0
1996Q4: 6,654.6
1997Q1: 6,773.1
1997Q2: 6,847.0
1997Q3: 6,956.7
1997Q4: 7,083.7
1998Q1: 7,247.1
1998Q2: 7,376.0
1998Q3: 7,485.8
1998Q4: 7,583.0
1999Q1: 7,658.4
1999Q2: 7,728.8
1999Q3: 7,823.7
1999Q4: 7,998.8
2000Q1: 8,266.2
2000Q2: 8,372.3
2000Q3: 8,514.4
2000Q4: 8,565.8
2001Q1: 8,663.5
2001Q2: 8,690.2
2001Q3: 8,727.4
2001Q4: 8,771.2
2002Q1: 8,803.6
2002Q2: 8,912.2
2002Q3: 8,944.0
2002Q4: 8,981.3
2003Q1: 9,048.7
2003Q2: 9,145.9
2003Q3: 9,242.5
Personal income has gone up every quarter for the past ten years. It even went up, slightly, in the fourth quarter of 2001 despite 9/11. It went up somewhat more rapidly during the Clinton years than the first three Bush years, but to say that we were a richer nation in the 1990's is not true. It is not "very-very hard to get paid like one did in the 90's anywhere." It is actually, on average, not hard at all to get paid like one did in the 90's. There are pockets, most notably Silicon Valley, where the increases were dramatic and hence unsustainable. But here in the Midwest, and elsewhere in the country, most people now make as much or more than they did in the 1990's. Personal income per quarter in the U.S. was over $9 trillion during the first three quarters of 2003. That has never happened before, not even in a single quarter. |
