Investors are familiar with the concept of risk-adjusted return. A fund which takes large risks to obtain higher returns might be judged inferior to another fund with lower risk and return. We should apply the same kind of thinking to the economic status of families in the US. While incomes have risen in recent decades, so has volatility in income. Families earn more
on average than in the past, but also suffer larger swings in income (most likely due to layoffs and unemployement).
The personal risk-adjusted performance of our economy is not nearly as impressive as the simple GDP numbers. The 3-part LA Times series covering this is available
here (their internal name for it is appropriately "new deal over").
I discussed this issue previously
here.
