Maybe you have an exceptional friend group because .. outside of your anecdata .. the statistically average salaries for many of those professions over large sample sets is below the median in the us and they are definitely not seeing their purchasing power increasing yearly
>they are definitely not seeing their purchasing power increasing yearly
In the US? Real Disposable Personal Income has been growing very consistently over time [1]. The rate of growth did stagnate between 2000 and 2013 but the trend has been remarkably consistent.
it claims that the average person has 50k usd in disposable yearly income - there's no way that's after housing and other non optional expenses have been accounted for.
using this measurement, if wages go up 5% but rent goes up 50%, it would still look as if people have more money to spend than before.
