Lower Wages, Lower Savings

The truth is never far behind
You kept it hidden well
--Madonna

The trend in wages and savings has been down for decades. Maintaining or improving standard of living has thus required borrowing consumption resources from others.

Obviously, this is not a steady state situation. Resources borrowed must either be a) paid back, which requires a chunk of future income to be allocated toward debt service, or b) not paid back via default or inflation, which takes wealth from creditors.

Either way, this is likely to suppress future consumption and future savings--both of which take a bite out of standard of living down the road.