This Generation Poorer Than The Last?

Per capita GDP (US) is way down measured against a basket of commodities and gold. It looks okay measured against shrinking dollars but this deliberately controversial chart is a shocker. We can buy some pretty cool gadgets today but forty years ago a single family paycheque could pay off a car and house.  Is that true?  Link to opinionated but documented claim.  The last ten years pack the wallop.





Related:  The number of barrels of oil to buy an ounce of gold has stayed pretty steady for the last fifty years, close to 15 barrels much of the time.  Why shouldn't productivity hold its own against the price of basic supplies?  I can think of stuff that's cheaper today than before but there's a current malaise, a feeling that it's not going to be as good for our kids as it was for us.  The boomerang kids in their twenties and thirties live with their parents again.(19% of the 25-34 age group)  The chart is a trigger for good questions, not an answer itself, and the methodology isn't there to check.

At home.