this was pretty interesting and i definitely believe that there is some merit there, though a few references would have been nice to see. for instance where is the statistic that real average wages have fallen 18%; maybe he means median wages and even so i think that there is some amount of academic debate on the matter. Also additional modern expenses are taken into account in CPI calculations (at least that's what i remember from econ, please correct me if i am wrong). So the fact that now everyone has a cell phone/internet bill is accounted for in the inflation numbers. Next, it would be interesting to see education levels and corresponding wages taken into account. Education costs may have gone up significantly but what about the corresponding wage gains for educated workers.

Really the problem here is that comparing averages doesn't make a lot of economic sense, because what was average 40 years ago would be considered below average today (think tvs, cars, home sizes...). Still its a very thought provoking article but I think it needs more research.

Edited