3 ms·
> Wages, in real terms, have largely lost purchasing power to the point where it takes two incomes to have the same (or less) purchasing power than one income d
by MarkMc 8y ago
> Wages, in real terms, have largely lost purchasing power to the point where it takes two incomes to have the same (or less) purchasing power than one income did prior to WWII.
I don't think that is true. Even if you exclude management jobs, hourly wages have remained roughly steady in real terms since the 1960's:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-...
There are also longitudinal effects at play: native-born Americans have seen their wages rise but this is offset by immigrants who generally have lower-than-average wages (but still higher than in the country they emigrated from). Both groups are better off even though average wages haven't changed.
- yomly 8y agoI had a quick cursory glance for useful contrasting data to show how while wages in real terms have stayed flat in the US, things like college tuition fees[1] and house prices[2] have not. Both of these things are pretty important - college education can be life altering in terms of career trajectory, and owning a house is an entry point into the wealth ladder and also simply an escape from rent. In real terms, the cost of these has runaway over the past 20-30 years and so people's access to two crucial things that aid social mobility (wealth/housing and education) have been eroding over the years. But apparently because our money can still buy a basket of goods we should be satisfied that our lives haven't gotten any worse. For me, and I'm pretty sure it's quite complex and I am guilty of Dunning Kruger wrt politics and economics, I simply cannot understand how inflation can get away without finding a way of placing these in the basket of goods used to calculate inflation. [1] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76 [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-property-poll/u-s-house-prices-to-rise-at-twice-the-speed-of-inflation-and-pay-reuters-poll-idUSKCN1J20G3 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-property-poll/u-s-hou...
- icu 8y agoExactly... flat wage growth in real terms is useless if the rise in the price of the things you need/want outstrips your ability to buy it.