From CNS News.
Excerpt:
The real median income of American men who work full-time, year-round peaked forty years ago in 1973, according to data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.
In 1973, median earnings for men who worked full-time, year-round were $51,670 in inflation-adjusted 2012 dollars. The median earnings of men who work full-time year-round have never been that high again.
[…]Ny “earnings,” the Census Bureau means money someone earns as an employee, which “includes wages, salary, armed forces pay, commissions, tips, piece-rate payments, and cash bonuses earned, before deductions are made for items such as taxes, bonds, pensions, and union dues.” It also includes “net income” from self-employment.
And in another CNS News article, we learn something worse.
Excerpt:
In 20 percent of American families in 2013, according to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), not one member of the family worked.
A family, as defined by the BLS, is a group of two or more people who live together and who are related by birth, adoption or marriage. In 2013, there were 80,445,000 families in the United States and in 16,127,000—or 20 percent–no one had a job.
The most troubling thing about these two findings for me is that I believe that a man’s authority to lead in the home comes from his special role as provider. It is because he works to fund the family operations that the wife and kids respect him. But what if we have policies that are more focused on making women work, and men’s salaries decline or go to zero? Well, in that household, it will be a lot more difficult for men to lead on moral and spiritual issues. Men should work, and they should earn enough to provide for a family.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
“I believe that a man’s authority to lead in the home comes from his special role as provider. It is because he works to fund the family operations that the wife and kids respect him.”
I disagree. Both the authority to lead and the responsibility to provide are God-given. If anything, the role of provider comes from being the leader, not the other way around. It’s not a case of “he who makes the money, makes the rules.” A woman isn’t to submit to her husband because he makes the money, but because God has placed him in authority as the leader for her family. If she happens to make more money than her husband for a period of time, she is still to submit to her husband’s leadership.
Also, it is not because he makes money that his wife and kids should respect him. That would mean a man who is out of work is not worthy of respect. That’s a dangerous idea. A husband and father is worthy of respect simply because he is a husband and father. His God-given role should command respect, regardless of the dollar amount he makes. Of course, he is doing his role well and living up to his responsibility when he provides for his family and men should be sure to do so.
It’s also a dangerous idea that a man deserves more respect the more money he makes. To have this idea is to make an idol of money. A man that provides sufficiently has lived up to that responsibility, whether he makes just enough to live on or has millions. Some men are gifted at making and saving a lot of money. Some are not. The important thing is that they put food on the table and a roof over their family’s head. Extra money is just that – extra. A woman should be appreciative if her husband provides extra, but the respect her husband deserves should be given regardless.
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I think I am speaking more practically about the way things really work between men and women in reality.
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I read similar data a while back that compared the amount of disposable income of family units between the early 1970’s and 201*s. Crazily enough, despite the proliferation of dual-income families, disposable income has actually decreased.
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Great post! I heard an analysis once that if women were to stop working then men’s wages would increase. This seems to fall into patriarchal Christian thinking. It might be interesting to do an article about that topic.
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