This is probably the first article on HN I wish I could downvote. Excluding inflation is super disingenuous.

We may be spending more, but it's on the order of 3-5% more (not counting debt spending), with the remainder of the income gain being wiped out by inflation.

I will say the exercise analogy is actually very correct though. Income gain helps very little at all with wealth since it helps very little at all due to inflation.