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Nope, the OP you are replying to is correct. In India, teachers are paid very handsomely when compared to other disciplines (~ Rs. 35000/month for fresh grad,

by screye 8y ago

Nope, the OP you are replying to is correct. In India, teachers are paid very handsomely when compared to other disciplines (~ Rs. 35000/month for fresh grad, after 7th pay commission). I and my brother grew up in a very high cost of living part of India, with my parents making a similar total wage and life was just fine. We rarely ate out (but my mom is a fabulous cook), nor went on vacation or splurged on fancy gadgets and toys, but the basics were in very much in place. Good nutritious food, large enough 2 bedroom house, decent schooling, working computer, internet access, all utilities, all while staying well groomed and growing up happy. In lower COL areas, it may even be possible to live with a bit more luxury than we did growing up. Cost of living calculations are misleading. The biggest expenses are rent, transportation and food. Those 3 much much cheaper in poor countries. ( joint families, public transport and dirt cheap food) Cultural traditions enable a cheaper lifestyle too. Retired Grand-parents take care of children and help with household tasks, so don't need to pay for day care and outside food. Adults usually stay with parents and slowly take over as head of family, instead of paying rent or needing to go in debt to buy a house upfront. > They’re getting a lot less than our minimum wage in relative dollars. Dunno about Ethiopia, but when compared to India, numbeo says Mumbai is 5 times cheaper than Boston. I am making ~10 times (for 1 person) more than what my parents made (for a family of 4) and QOL is not much different. I can afford fancier gadgets and a lot more fast food. But, human services like house cleaning, home cooks or a domestic help are waaaaay out side my pay grade, while my Indians making ~20 times less can afford some of those. The basics here in the US : housing, transportation and good food are pretty expensive in the US.

dahart 8y ago
> Cost of living calculations are misleading. I can totally agree, but using isn’t GDP units more misleading since GDP inherently reflects neither income nor cost of living? > The biggest expenses are rent, transportation and food. Those 3 much much cheaper in poor countries. ( joint families, public transport and dirt cheap food) Totally, the relative costs for various things I would expect to be different in different countries. But I don’t understand why that invalidates cost of living as a metric. It should be an absolute number that accounts for locally adjusted costs. I expect the local cost of living to account for whatever the normal average costs are for rent & food, regardless of how that compares to other countries. Of course there are a lot of problems comparing costs in the US to India or Ethiopia. But isn’t looking at what the average person makes relative to what the average person has to pay to live there a lot more relevant than the country’s GDP? > Mumbai is 5 times cheaper than Boston. I am making ~10 times (for 1 person) more than what my parents made (for a family of 4) and QOL is not much different. Right, exactly. You’re only making in relative terms 2x more, not 10x. And not all services scale the same way. Hiring human services in the US is relatively much more expensive. That’s all expected and agrees with what I’m saying. I don’t see how any of this supports GDP per capita as a QOL metric. Maybe the PPP adjusted metic like @nabla9 suggests, in which case the teacher pay factor in Ethiopia is 2.5x compared to the US, not 7x.
- screye 8y ago
  > I don’t see how any of this supports GDP per capita as a QOL metric. My bad, I should have clarified. I was trying to make a point about teaching being a relatively well paid job in (in this case) my home country of India and that thinking of COL or QOL in simple terms of scalar multiples is not all that helpful. That being said, your other point totally holds. GDP is 100%, a flimsy metric to gauge QOL. Also, India-US disparity may be closer to 7-8x, but in the Ethiopia-US case it appears to be closer to 60-70x. You correct, that 800$/year is a laughable income to live any kind of life, and no difference in GDPs or cost of products is going to make up for such a massive difference in wealth. This is a country living almost entirely in poverty, and earning a standard deviation for two more than the median would still leave one in crippling poverty.

by screye 8y ago

dahart 8y ago

> Cost of living calculations are misleading. I can totally agree, but using isn’t GDP units more misleading since GDP inherently reflects neither income nor cost of living? > The biggest expenses are rent, transportation and food. Those 3 much much cheaper in poor countries. ( joint families, public transport and dirt cheap food) Totally, the relative costs for various things I would expect to be different in different countries. But I don’t understand why that invalidates cost of living as a metric. It should be an absolute number that accounts for locally adjusted costs. I expect the local cost of living to account for whatever the normal average costs are for rent & food, regardless of how that compares to other countries. Of course there are a lot of problems comparing costs in the US to India or Ethiopia. But isn’t looking at what the average person makes relative to what the average person has to pay to live there a lot more relevant than the country’s GDP? > Mumbai is 5 times cheaper than Boston. I am making ~10 times (for 1 person) more than what my parents made (for a family of 4) and QOL is not much different. Right, exactly. You’re only making in relative terms 2x more, not 10x. And not all services scale the same way. Hiring human services in the US is relatively much more expensive. That’s all expected and agrees with what I’m saying. I don’t see how any of this supports GDP per capita as a QOL metric. Maybe the PPP adjusted metic like @nabla9 suggests, in which case the teacher pay factor in Ethiopia is 2.5x compared to the US, not 7x.

screye 8y ago
> I don’t see how any of this supports GDP per capita as a QOL metric. My bad, I should have clarified. I was trying to make a point about teaching being a relatively well paid job in (in this case) my home country of India and that thinking of COL or QOL in simple terms of scalar multiples is not all that helpful. That being said, your other point totally holds. GDP is 100%, a flimsy metric to gauge QOL. Also, India-US disparity may be closer to 7-8x, but in the Ethiopia-US case it appears to be closer to 60-70x. You correct, that 800$/year is a laughable income to live any kind of life, and no difference in GDPs or cost of products is going to make up for such a massive difference in wealth. This is a country living almost entirely in poverty, and earning a standard deviation for two more than the median would still leave one in crippling poverty.