Just looking at the first graph - Real median Household Income, and then reading the conclusion ("Lowest since 1999").

That's the real art of presenting the data the way to support one's agenda.

If one bothers to shift "statistical sampling" just two years back, the whole picture magically changes - there would be a ...small gain in household income between 1997 and 2007. Wow! How could that be?

Please, do not stop there. Let's see how did we do between, say, 1993 and 2003. You know, post dotcom, post 9/11... We did great! Incomes rose from 46.5 to 51.5.

We may keep playing with numbers. Why have a decade-long steps? Let's change them to 5- or 6-years long steps, and if you need to prove something, the period between 2003 and 2009 would show a great increase.

It all depends on how carefully we chose our points of comparison.