Oh, I missed that you didn't use a number divided by expenses because I just assumed you'd use a relevant number. And "real" income isn't great because again, tons of durable goods are incredibly cheap these days, but real estate/food and drink isn't.
Absolute numbers are completely worthless because of the price level of the goods we're talking about in the first place. They could make a dollar a week and it's fine if a drink costs a penny and housing is free, for the purposes of this discussion.
Price level aka inflation of real estate and drinks/food is literally the most relevant number here.
Edit - I did some napkin maths. A beer in 1890 was about 3 times cheaper than today relative to income, assuming Google's numbers are somewhat accurate.
Also, anecdotally, food and drink in North America are expensive. We have a second home in Czech Republic, and beer is about 4-5x cheaper there than in Canada, while incomes are only about 30% less, and for young people the gap is even less.
Absolute numbers are completely worthless because of the price level of the goods we're talking about in the first place. They could make a dollar a week and it's fine if a drink costs a penny and housing is free, for the purposes of this discussion.
Price level aka inflation of real estate and drinks/food is literally the most relevant number here.
Edit - I did some napkin maths. A beer in 1890 was about 3 times cheaper than today relative to income, assuming Google's numbers are somewhat accurate.
Also, anecdotally, food and drink in North America are expensive. We have a second home in Czech Republic, and beer is about 4-5x cheaper there than in Canada, while incomes are only about 30% less, and for young people the gap is even less.