Since then, however, commodity prices have typically been on a downward trend. And, of course, they fell sharply in the wake of the Asian crisis in 1997-98, before partly recovering in 1999. We have to take this into account when we examine what happened to our standard of living in the 1990s compared with earlier decades.
We also need to look at what has happened to personal income after taxes. From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, tax revenues did not cover government spending and we were getting deeper and deeper into debt. In other words, we were living beyond our means.