Perhaps picking the time when wages were an all time high relative to costs isn't reasonable, but no question wages haven't come close to keeping up or being reasonable.

When I was about 19 I was making about $7/hour and I drove a Datsun 1000.  It cost me about $7-8 to fill the tank.  Today it costs me $50-60 to fill my tank.  I have 8 years of university and a whole world more experience yet I could buy enough gas to drive a week for about an hour's worth of work in the early 80s with practically no work experience. So, the tank was smaller.  I worked in a bank and minimum wage was $5/hour.

I suspect entry level bank workers have to work about 3-4 hours to fill their gas tank these days.