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As other commenter says, it's not "this or that", but having said that, quality of life for the middle class was definitely better only a few decades ago. An av
by lowbloodsugar 9y ago
As other commenter says, it's not "this or that", but having said that, quality of life for the middle class was definitely better only a few decades ago. An average job would get you a house, a car and a pension, working eight hours a day, five days a week. And "middle class" meant a much greater range of jobs. Factory work could get you a house, a car and a pension. Time with kids, no worries about the future, or how you are going to eat when you retire, if you get to retire. Good times.
- bproven 9y agoAgreed this is the biggest change... Those days are over.
- jdminhbg 9y ago> Time with kids, no worries about the future, or how you are going to eat when you retire, if you get to retire. Good times. The numbers say you're wrong: http://www.nber.org/aginghealth/summer04/w10466.html http://www.nber.org/aginghealth/summer04/w10466.html
- rifung 9y agoIs this the right link? This article is about poverty and not about how far you could go on a middle class income
- jdminhbg 9y agoIt's about elderly people living in poverty. It's very relevant to whether retirements and pensions are falling off a cliff and whether people won't be able to eat when they're retired, as alleged.
- rifung 9y agoAh.. but what about being able to afford a house on a job that requires minimal education like working in a factory? That was actually the main point from my interpretation.
- lowbloodsugar 9y agoI say "the middle class was better off only a few decades ago". You show me a graph that ends two decades ago. About poverty.
- jdminhbg 9y agoYou say "no worries about the future, or how you are going to eat when you retire, if you get to retire," and I pointed out that the number of the elderly in poverty has fallen off a cliff since your mythical golden age. The current poverty rate for seniors is now below that of when the above graph cuts off, naturally [pdf warning]: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-256.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
- lowbloodsugar 9y agoThe graph on page 9 shows that the number of people in poverty since your first graph ended (in 2000) has increased by 15 million.