Something that was priced at $990 in 2008 costs $1,489.70 today.
Playing with the math :
1498.7 / 990 => 1.514 How much would the median wage have to increase to reduce this price ratio increase down to 1.317 ? The answer is 1.514 / 1.149 => 1.317 to yield an increase of 31.7% in real prices I need a wage increase of 14.9% for my math to work. How much did the median income actually increase?
Real median household income (Census, expressed in 2024 C-CPI-U dollars): ↑ 18.73%. Applying the two data sources to create the ratio is : 1.514 / 1.187 => 1.275 for an increase of 27.5% in real prices.
Sources: The above article and FRED. So now you can take your AI and go fuck yourself with it. You whittled my 31.7 % down to 27.5 % with some hard facts. Big Deal. The misery is slightly less quantified with this pair of data sources. Other sources can be used, YMMV.
For the average American prosperity caught the last train for the coast quite a while ago no matter how much you want to complicate this. No easy answer is bullshit, and that is exactly what your AI gave you. The answer is the result of a simple ratio, and there is nothing complicated about it.
In some ways AI is the madness of crowds.
* Depending on which metrics are used real living standards have fallen from ~27 to ~35 % since 2008 using the ratio presented. I may have been closer the first time.