The press misses no opportunity to distort statistics to encourage public self-pity, like the recent AP report announcing that “American men in their 30’s today are worse off than their father’s generation.” Numbers cited in the study revealed that in the last decade inflation-adjusted income for the average man actually went up sharply, by 6.5%!  Moreover, the figures never counted the value of benefits – particularly costly health insurance – that many workers get today that they never received a generation ago. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office – analyzing households with children, not male individuals – showed that Americans in every income group saw a sharp improvement in family income since 1991 --- with middle class purchasing power soaring nearly $10,000 a year!  By focusing only on men, the gloom-and-doom report ignored the fact that far more women are working, and earning vastly more income, than in previous generations: providing males, for better of worse, with new workplace competition.