I'm sticking with my "shitcession" definition of our current and more than decade long fall from grace. Sure you're employed with a great income and spending only 50% of your income.
While many people are working two, no benefit, part time jobs saving zilch. The balance is going in that direction more each year. Walmart -- the nations largest employer outside the military industrial complex, will now pay people $9 an hour! They employ over 2 million people and are the largest employer in many states.
There once was a time in the not too distant past when GM was one of the largest employers and their inflation adjusted pay was around $60 and hour plus massive benefits.
Allow me to counter Bob W's characteristically pessimistic view of our world with my own unbridled optimism. Certainly the starting salary of the nation's largest employer is nothing middle-class Americans would aspire to, but using those entry-level positions to determine the affluency of the United States isn't very meaningful. Real-adjusted median household income is a much more meaningful gauge.
"but wait, all I hear on the news are the phrases 'stagnant wages' and 'suffering middle class.' Isn't that bad?"
Well it all depends on your frame of reference. Wages are a few percentage points below the absolute height we saw just before 'great recession', and median household income is higher overall than during the 1990s, which was higher than during the 1970s, which was higher than during the 1950s. That hardly seems like the description of a 'decade long fall from grace'.
Speaking of this 'decade long fall' - under what metrics are you measuring this? Unemployment is neither historically high nor low, median wages (as mentioned above) are close to the highest we've ever had, inflation has been very low, mortgage rates are near historical lows. Life span has slowly increased to 78.8 years at birth, median household debt has actually gone down since 2009. From an international perspective, Japan didn't usurp the United States as was widely predicted in the 1980s & 90s. China still has not overtaken the US in most categories despite articles declaring it would do so soon after the millennium. The euro-zone has far deeper economic problems. Who have we fallen from? Loads of analysts have predicted economic chaos from after-effects of "Quantitative Easing" - and even Bernanke declared we were in "uncharted waters" when he started it. We're 5 years in and the floor hasn't collapsed yet. Maybe it will (time will tell) - but it's a bit premature to spread doom-and-gloom there. The US has a manageable and slowly increasing work force
energy is still cheap in real-adjusted terms, and computers and phone costs far less than they did 20 years ago, with more power and capabilties (respectively). Cars come with more features and last on average 4 years longer today than 20 years ago. Renewable energy is finally becoming economical (almost half of all new sources of electricity in the US in the past two years has come from renewable sources).
Finally there's the great, 800pound-gorilla economic metric of them all, Mr. Market. In the last 20 years the SP500 returned 6.9% adjusted. (or 6.1% over the last decade). This is right around the median average. We hit an all-time back in May. Corporate earnings are near an all-time high. OF course it would be better if those earnings were better shared, but as it stands the 'average' person is still doing fairly well from an historical perspective.
I'm not suggesting absolutely everything is hunky-dorey. We have some serious challenges to address, and there is always uncertainty ahead. Heading that list of serious challenges certainly includes income inequality, the environment, our only maginally-improved debt & savings rates, violent extremists (but I can find no point in history where this wasn't a problem), and lots of debt floating around at all levels.
a few sources:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdfhttp://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/renew_co2.cfmhttps://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/251007/Are-Cars-Cheaper-Now-than-in-the-1990s/https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/251007/Are-Cars-Cheaper-Now-than-in-the-1990s/and for more fun, optimistic reading:
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/11/29/everything-is-great-and-nobody-is-happy.aspx