"It means my family can buy better stuff than they could 40 years ago for a much cheaper price..."
This can mean one of two things. You may mean you are from one of the wealthier families who have benefited from the decline of US hourly wages. If so, you're in a minority.
If you mean it in a more general sense, I don't think you understand the concept of the terms inflation-adjusted wages or real wages. The man in 2012 making less in inflation-adjusted hourly wages than his father did 40 years ago can not buy more with his wages. The amount of food, clothes etc. he can buy after eight hours work is less, not more. I don't think you understand what I mean by real wages or inflation-adjusted wages. The average American working 40 hours a week can not afford as much food, clothes etc. as he could 40 years ago. Because real hourly wages have fallen over the past 40 years.
But goods are cheaper today than they were 40 years go, thanks in large part to globalization and manufacturing innovations. So if goods are cheaper, does it really matter if real wages have declined?
And looking at the data, to me it looks like real wages are roughly at the same level they were 50 years ago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Real_Wages_1964-2004.gi...). If goods a cheaper and real wages are roughly the same, aren't we all better off?
The man in 2012 making less in inflation-adjusted hourly wages than his father did 40 years ago can not buy more with his wages.
This is true. But the figures you cite adjust for Chained CPI, not inflation. Chained CPI is not the same thing as inflation because the basket of goods does not remain constant.
Any purported inflation metric which doesn't come with a starting date is flawed. In fact, people today spend far less of their income on food, clothes, etc as they did 40 years ago.
This can mean one of two things. You may mean you are from one of the wealthier families who have benefited from the decline of US hourly wages. If so, you're in a minority.
If you mean it in a more general sense, I don't think you understand the concept of the terms inflation-adjusted wages or real wages. The man in 2012 making less in inflation-adjusted hourly wages than his father did 40 years ago can not buy more with his wages. The amount of food, clothes etc. he can buy after eight hours work is less, not more. I don't think you understand what I mean by real wages or inflation-adjusted wages. The average American working 40 hours a week can not afford as much food, clothes etc. as he could 40 years ago. Because real hourly wages have fallen over the past 40 years.