"Real" as opposed to "nominal" in this context means inflation adjusted, which means that wages have been increasing faster than inflation for 30 years. Now, it is true that some components of cost of living, most notably housing, have (especially in particular regions) also increased in cost faster than the general inflation level. But that's not due to some inherent breakdown between productivity and wages. It's due to a series of bad policy and development choices mostly in cities.
So if you want to have that discussion, that's fine, but it's totally separate from the original discussion about productivity and wages.
> which means that wages have been increasing faster than inflation for 30 years
If you look at the graph you posted and carried the slope of the pre-70s trajectory forward, assuming that the 70s-90s slump had not happened, would the graph end in the same place it is currently?
No. Not even close
> So if you want to have that discussion, that's fine, but it's totally separate from the original discussion about productivity and wages.
It's absolutely not a separate discussion, the end result is that the same "real wage" that used to provide a comfortable life is now poverty
You cannot just shrug your shoulders and say "well incomes are matching productivity so this is fine actually"
The average us worker now had to complete with more women entering the workforce and entering more fields and careers. They also had to compete with ever increasing numbers of immigrants and they had to compete with foreign workers.
When you massively increase the supply of labor, you’re going to have downward pressure on wages.
So if you want to have that discussion, that's fine, but it's totally separate from the original discussion about productivity and wages.