There are a couple things going on.

Usually in reports like this there are mentions of job growth (ie new recorded hiring) unemployment going down and average income levels rising.

Ok so yes, jobs are created, wonderful.

But lots of things arent recorded as job losses.

Generally speaking, if you dont file for unemployment, or dont qualify, but still lost a job, you dont show up without doing far, far more exhaustive research than these headline numbers illustrate.

And any prole has either had this happen to themselves or someone they know by this point, at least amongst people I know.

Or, if you are out of the workforce due to an injury, illness and/or esrly retirement, that usually doesnt show up as a job loss, but does show up as ‘not in the workforce’.

And, if youre not in the workforce, you are not considered unemployed, as you are not in the pool if possibly employable workers.

So, wonderful, that not in work force number is still high compared to historical norms, as a proportion of the whole population. Its going up.

Income. This one is easy.

Thats usually always a headline of average income.

Cool. Averages dont mean dick in an economy where the vast number of people earn little, and only a few earn a lot. So what did we learn in basic statstics hopefully?

5 5 5 5 5 has an average of 5

1 1 1 2 20 /also/ has an average of 5.

Further compounding things, Americans are now drowning in personal debt, so much so that even quite a lot of people who /appear/ to be well off actually have as much net worth as many who appear not well off.

The maths and data on that is /way/ more complicated, but the rough breakdown is:

1/4 of Americans have significantly negative net worth, ie -5000 or worse.

1/4 of Americans have roughly 0 net worth.

1/4 of Americans have roughly positive net worth, ie up to 10k.

Then the higher you go from there its an exponential scale of less and less people having more and more money.

Ending up with something like the richest 1% of Americans have more net worth / wealth than the bottom 60%.

The confusing part is that for incomes below basically about a quarter mil a year, there is again actually significsntly wide variance in the relationship of yearly income to net worth.

Many people of modest means are actually in financially better positions than many people who would basically be their boss, or bosses boss…

But can you imagine that the richer ones either hide this and lie about it, or act like its fine and not a problem for them, but it /is/ a problem for those of lower income, and /they/ are irresponsible and need personal austerity finances, while they (the higher incomed folks) dont?

So anyway, there ya go, theres /some/ explanation of whats going on from someone with a bachelors in econ, specialty in econometrics and environmental econ, and another bachelors in poli sci.

For me to actually lay all this out with proper cited studies and data sets would basically be a phd thesis, im tired, go away.

Basically the title of this thesis would be ‘How the American Economy Enforced And Solidified An Economic Caste System Structure Following the 08 Financial Crisis’ and would focus heavily on how income mobility has been extremely reduced for large segments of society in the past 15 years.

Hilariously I cant afford to pay for a PHD, so whats the fucking point rofl.

EDIT;

2 other major factors: Rent and Healthcare.

Both of those are absolute shit shows right now, and vaaaaastly take more proportional income from a poorer person than a richer one.

Remember when most people owned homes by their 30s?

Haha, yeah, good one, me neither.

EDIT 2: Alternative spicy title for the PHD Thesis would be:

"An aggregate, ends justify the means, moral argument for the justness and validity of,

at best,

letting all the baby boomers die scared and alone in old folks homes with poorly trained and paid staff who will abuse them until they die painful, terrifying, lonely deaths,

or, at worst,

why we should actually just start killing /enough/ of them that it scares the rest of them into selling their barely-not-foreclosed-on second homes they are renting out based not on actual market rates but on the prices dictated by their mortgage payments… why we should kill enough of them that they sell these properties for about 1/4 of what they think they are worth."

Probably that one wouldnt fly. Probably.