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Some households have two earners. Most do not. The average is 1.3 earners per household. https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/use-with-caution-interpreting-con
by the_gastropod 8y ago
Some households have two earners. Most do not. The average is 1.3 earners per household. https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/use-with-caution-interpreting-consumer-expenditure-income-group-data.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/use-with-caution-inter...
- mdorazio 8y agoRight, so that's a median per-worker wage of around $22/hour. But $14/hour is right in the middle of the 2nd and 3rd income quintiles [1], meaning a solid 40% of Americans don't even make that much. It's not a very strong argument unless you're OK with current poverty and lack of retirement ability trends for large swathes of the country. [1] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-quintiles https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-...
- the_gastropod 8y agoRead the title of the article again ;-) Most Americans can retire. And there's this pretty broad movement to rationalize middle class earners failing to save. For those earning under ~25k/year, I agree: it's challenging. Especially if they've got medical problems or other extenuating circumstances to deal with.
- sharkmerry 8y agoUnder 25k/year pre or post tax?
- mdorazio 8y agoNot disagreeing with the article title, just with your assessment of what "normal" means in the context of earnings for Americans. I think we just have different ideas about what segment of the population that term should apply to.