>But not back to the 1973 level, are they?
Nope, still about 8% below (though the real hourly wage has risen about 10% from the 1995 low).
One important point: the average wage is an average of all wages, obviously enough - but relatively few individual workers have seen steep real wage declines, and many have seen increases as they aged (though not as steep as their generational predecessors). This diluted the political effects of a declining average wage.
Doug