My wife and I decided not to go anywhere on New Year’s Day. Instead, we spent the day at home. Bored, I decided to devote my first day of this new decade to examining something interesting of the past decade. One of the most distinctive features of the 2010s was America’s roaring stock market, which now is the longest bull market in history. Including dividends, $1 invested in the S&P 500 Index — a basket of some 500 companies — has turned into $3.6, a whopping 13.6% annualized rate of return. The stunning performance of America’s stock market invites the arrival of a very logical conclusion: over the past decade, American companies and people have fared well.

However, this rosy image does not square with reality. For the 19 years from 1999 to 2018, real median household income in the U.S. has only grown at 0.14% a year; from 2007 to 2018, the pace was only 0.32% a year.

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