There's one small problem here... the link you provided refers to "real" dollars by default. That's after being adjusted for inflation. Use the "nominal" setting on your link to see actual dollars. When you do that you'll see that the Per Capita Income for 2007 was $26,688 and in 2016 was $31,128. That's a 16.6% increase by my math.
On the subject of Disposable Income per Capita,
per the Fed, even on a real dollar adjusted basis it's higher now than in 2007.
The unions at Disney are negotiating nominal dollars and not real dollars. In fact COLAs are usually the core of union wage increase demands.
You are no doubt correct that "many" Americans have not seen an increase of 1% over several years... but per the data that's "argument by anomaly" as they are the exception and not the rule. Many others have gotten a lot MORE than 3% over the last several years. But what does either fact that have to do with the demands from the bargaining representatives of CMs?
"Real dollars" (Dollars adjusted to a common base via inflation calculations) are what matters. I know from personal experience in such negotiations, that unions often actually talk about "real" dollars in their negotiations. They highlight inflation and its impact on their wages, and use wage increases tied to inflation as a status quo, anything above the rate of inflation as a wage increase, anything below, as a wage decrease.
The same is true for wage growth, when its discussed by professionals, academics, etc, we generally use "real dollars".
Wage growth is on the upswing in the last two years. The low unemployment rate generally leads to this. But the long term trend is still terrible, and while I'd like to be more optimistic about the current situation and administration's impact on wages, the reality is that this is largely the continued trend from the last 8 years of job growth and economic growth/recovery. We are getting very very late in the economic cycle and wages are just now starting to rise (they should have before this), its likely a downturn is quite near around the corner. The Tax policy was the exact opposite of sound economic decision making, which would be to increase taxes while times are good (pay down debt, set it aside for future expenditures) and cut them while times are bad (to stimulate the economy). What it has done is only increased the sugar high the economy is experiencing, supercharging an already booming economy, and while that is good in the short run politically, it means when the crash comes, its going to come even harder than it would have and the government will have fewer tools to respond with (less ability to cut taxes if they are already cut, less ability to lower interest rates if they are already low - though they are creeping up, less ability to inject direct stimulus if you are already heavily in debt and running massive deficits).
Um, anyway, I don't know how this turned into one of my economics lectures, but it did. I have slides, citations and case studies to go along with it if you'd all like
One of the best things that COULD happen to help soften the coming blow would be REAL wage growth at the bottom end of the economy. Increases in the stock market, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest, really make the US more vulnerable to whats coming, particularly when the US was already very competitive (despite what the nay sayers like to say by pointing to "official" tax levels instead of "effective" levels of taxation"
