Is US average income really down between 47 and 64% since 1928?

Miscellaneous General
1

I ran across this CPI calculator http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm and decided to play with some numbers

Year income Adjusted to 2010
1928 6078.93 77517.38
2010 43673. 43673

Which is 47% less

Then I guessed 12% vs 40% Government spending from this table

!(http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/usgs_line.php?title=US Government Spending As Percent Of GDP&units=p&size=m&year=1903_2012&sname=US&bar=0&stack=1&col=c&legend=&source=i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_a_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_a_i_i_i_i_a_i_i_i_i_a_i_a_i_a_i_a_i_a_i_a_i_a_i_a_i_a_i_a_i_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_i_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_i_a_i_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_g_g&spending0=6.79_7.29_6.90_6.80_6.62_7.89_7.84_8.03_8.30_8.10_8.21_9.56_9.81_8.21_9.49_22.10_29.31_12.82_14.30_12.66_11.27_11.48_11.44_11.12_11.74_11.75_11.27_13.07_15.92_21.19_22.38_19.40_20.17_20.00_18.74_20.53_20.66_20.14_19.22_28.15_46.68_50.02_52.99_35.87_23.65_20.47_23.47_23.95_22.38_27.88_29.02_29.27_26.70_26.47_27.21_28.84_28.77_28.74_30.25_28.94_28.71_28.50_26.96_27.45_29.80_30.47_30.08_31.00_31.49_31.36_29.78_30.23_33.62_34.00_32.91_32.02_31.58_33.72_33.64_36.25_36.31_34.44_35.48_35.71_35.09_34.73_34.93_36.01_37.22_37.04_36.31_35.38_35.53_34.69_33.76_33.24_32.64_32.56_33.33_34.74_35.31_34.86_34.83_35.12_35.09_37.16_42.83_40.91_40.09_40.27)

and subtracted it from the average incomes.

year income
1928 68215.29
2010 25003.8

Which brings me to the 64% figure.

2

Measures like this do not measure wealth. It doesn’t matter how much money you make. What matters is what can you buy for it and whether what you can buy for it satisfies your wants more than in the past. I could argue that although people make less money they can have their needs satisfied better today. Amount of money you make is meaningless by itself.

3

The above is true. That’s why figures like GDP do not adequately reflect living standards (because living standards are non-quantifiable and GDP masks hidden variables).

Still, the statistic you show is quite interesting. I have no idea what it means.