From a reader:

Jonah, I know the argument about household income is old now, but I always like to look at after tax income, that is actually up significantly. I think a lot of numbers don’t mean much anyway. Every time I hear about how tough it is for people to make it compared to our parents, I think back to my years in high school. My parents owned 1 decent car, that would have been lucky to last 85,000 miles, the other car was a beater that my father drove. We had 2 telephones with one number that attached to the wall, one TV with no remote that received 5 channels, 1 clock-radio, one small stereo, no computers, VCR, game console, PDA, cell phone, MP3 player, and a pool table in the garage made me the envy of all my friends. My siblings and I had to work to buy my a car, pay insurance and buy gas. All this when my father was a retired Air Force NCO and working as a mid level GS employee for the Feds. I am also a mid level GS employee drawing Air Force retired pay as a MSgt. I own 5 networked computers, my wife’s blackberry, a 2007 and 1999 vehicle in addition to my 2002 motorcycle. My kids all drive reliable late 90s cars that I bought. Every member of the family has a cell phone, we have 4 televisions 3 hooked to satellite, numerous DVD players, an old VHS deck, numerous game consoles. I have a kick butt surround sound stereo tied to the TV/DVD/Computer entertainment system as well as the kids all having some kind of stereo in their room as well as their portable CD players and MP3 players. I live in a older but very nice 2700 square foot house on a lot just under 2 acres. I have a well funded pension plan at work as well as some smaller but not insignificant stock holdings. You tell me who is living a higher standard of life.