Any solutions to macro-economic trends?

Have the govt stop diluting the dollar.

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While many older gen x and boomers haven’t exactly experienced the same things as younger gen x’ers and millennials,

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That group has experienced much harder economic times than younger gen x'ers and millenials...

Auburn 80 made good points.
I would add bring back manufacturing.How stupid is it that we are dependant on China for so much of our steel and medications.

Break up the Medical Industrial Complex.

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It is no secret that wages have stagnated verses inflation over the previous decades

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Might be more a secret than you realize.

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standards of living have been dropping steadily over the past 20 years

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Even assuming wages had stagnated verses inflation, why would that lead to a decline in standard of living?

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What would you do to bring inflation under control and increase wages/decrease prices to improve standards of living?

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Messaging is huge. E.g., The initial false premises in the OP set the perception that salaries need to escalate, i.e., inflate.

Unfortunately, aside from messaging, rate hikes, QT, and likely recession with increased unemployment are the more painful solutions.

Salaries aren’t high enough to afford standards of living that Americans invision for middle class (owning a single family home in a relatively safe neighborhood with a little yard, modernish appliances, surviving on one or two incomes to raise 2 or 3 kids). So either prices need to come down, pay needs to go up, or the value of currency needs to increase.

I remember Homer Simpson being considered a poor loser when I was a kid. I don’t have many peers who live half as well as that fictional family. I know a lot of folks that studied hard in school, got stem degrees work professional jobs, and still are stuck living with parents or in crappy apartments with roommates whilst also working multiple side-hustles just to make ends meet. I know very few people around my age who are married with kids living in single family homes that they own. Those who do have both parents working, inherited money from their parents, and are in debt up to their eyeballs because they can’t afford it.

It feels like so many people have done everything right, and it’s getting them nowhere. Something has got to give.

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Could you imagine these millennials and gen Zers with a Vietnam draft? Cold War threats? Carter’s gas crisis? Home loans with 15-20 percent interest?

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I cannot. I didn’t say one side had it worse or better, just different. The world 20 and 30 somethings are living in now is substantially different from the one that existed 40-50 years ago. There’s no denying that.

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They have it soooo bad! It’s now every TWO years they get a new I phone! Once a day at Starbucks!! They may have to cancel one of their 10 streaming services!! They cannot spend as much at the bar on the weekend!!

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This is a really disingenuous argument that I see made frequently. This is the sort of strawman argument that frequently derails conversations like this, shows a complete ignorance of economic reality, and reveals just how completely removed from economic reality a lot of people are.

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Could you imagine these millennials and gen Zers with a Vietnam draft? Cold War threats? Carter’s gas crisis?

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I'd take that in a second over a 2008 followed by Covid.

That life is different now than it was in 1973? How is that a “muddy” assertion?

People drink less, smoke less, are more obese, work longer hours, have less sex, marry later, have fewer kids and start having kids later in life, have a greater share of children outside of marriage, attend more schooling, and have massively powerful super computers with access to the sum of all human knowledge in their pockets at all times.

Are you arguing that life in 2023 and 1973 is exactly the same?

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n terms of real home prices combined with lending rates, home affordability was at a 50+yr high in the 2010-14 timeframe. That was a great buying window.

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Not if you just lost whatever equity your first housing had accrued from 2008-2010 or you were fresh out of college making $30k a year with student loans and a high monthly rent. It’s all a great time to buy a home now, if you are an all cash buyer. But how many young people can be?