You can practically hear young eyes roll when their elders describe their glory days.

And yet, the fact that Michigan’s peak was 70 years ago, salary-wise, combined with eye-popping per-hour rates in the public sector locally, raises too few eyebrows.

Per capita census data indicates Michigan’s 10 million or so residents in 2022 averaged $57,038, compared to the nation’s $65,470.

Put another way: Michiganders make .87 cents for every $1 earned by the average U.S. resident.

Bridge Michigan reported last week that this is the lowest point in the state’s history, lowest among our Midwest brethren and sistren, and ranks us 39th in the country for personal income.

In 1999, we ranked 16th.

Before that, Michigan led the birth of the middle class and, thus, “the arsenal of democracy,” said Eric Lupher, president of Citizens Research Council. Now, “we’ve hit a new low as a state.”

But you might not know it by what we pay our public servants.

Traverse City attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht has gotten a 61-percent wage increase in the last two years, to $160,000, plus additional benefits. City employees got $148,000 in wage increases; Grand Traverse employees received at least 12.5 percent since December; county Administrator Nate Alger got another 5% percent added to his $177,518, plus benefits and car allowance …

But even these pale against what taxpayers carry in upheaval for no given reasons.

Filling the city manager position — a job given to Elizabeth Vogel for $175,000, plus benefits, $8,000 in pay to move here from Missaukee County, and a $500 a month car allowance — has cost more than $250,000, with interim Nate Geinzer’s $130/hour meter running until January.

The surprise retirement of Grand Traverse Pavilions CEO Rose Coleman is costing $95/hour.

Public sector wages go up often as a result of “wage studies” by paid consultants hired by the body, which compare them to yet other people in the public sector and arm them with vague scaremongering, like “We have to pay this or else lose this person to the private sector.”

Hey, private sector workers, when was your last 60-percent raise?

Per-capita personal income takes all of our income, dividends, interest and rent and government benefits and divides by our population numbers.

With these wages inflating our averages to 39th in the country, imagine what they are being lifted from.

— Traverse City Record-Eagle