Writing in the Guardian Joseph Stiglitz commits an economic howler. A truly amazing mistake for a man who won the Nobel in Economics:

But these statistics mask a glaring fact: the average American family is worse off than it was three-and-a-half years ago. Median income has fallen by over $1,500 in real terms, with families being squeezed as wages lag behind inflation. In short, all that growth benefited only those at the top of the income distribution, the same group that had done so well over the previous 30 years and benefited most from Bush’s tax cut.
For example, some 45 million Americans have no health insurance, up by 5.2 million from 2000. Families lucky enough to have health insurance face annual premiums that have nearly doubled, to $7,500. Families also face increasing job insecurity. This is the first time since the early 1930s that there has been a net loss of jobs over the span of a presidential administration.

Leave aside the cherry picking of statitics for a moment (why median income? why not mean? Why concentrate on health insurance? etc.) Let us take the numbers presented as true. Families are $1,500 per year worse off in monetary income. Health insurance costs have risen by $3,750 a year. In the American system health insurance comes with a job, the cost of that insurance being part of total compensation offered to the workforce. So, total compensation for the median family has gone up by $2,250 a year.
Puts a slightly different complexion on the problem, doesn’t it? It is not stagnating wages, it is not that the rich are getting all the goodies. It is that there is excessive inflation in health care costs.
If I, a mere B.Sc. in the subject can get it, what does that say about our Nobel Laureate? Not just lies, damn lies and statistics, but perhaps, just possibily, partisan hack?