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How much Americans make in wages
- pxeboot 8y agoDual ~30k incomes is still very much middle class in most of the US.
- brohoolio 8y agoYea but add kids to the mix. You can easily spend 10k-15k in daycare.
- jefftk 8y agoper kid (in MA, at least)
- anoncoward111 8y agoUnfortunately most of the population lives in a select few metro areas where, due to the price of rent, greatly reduces the power of 60k in joint income, married or not :(
- mac01021 8y agoMost?
- anoncoward111 8y agoI mean, do you want a specific number? Because if you go to the Wikipedia page for "List of US Metropolitan Statistical Areas", you'll see the following Amarillo TX population: 265,000 NY, LA, CHI, DAL, HOU, DC, MIA: 70,000,000
- atburrow 8y ago21.5% is not what I would consider “most of the population”.
- aaomidi 8y agoWell he's not considering in a lot of the other cities that have the same problem. Example: Philadelphia and its suburbs.
- anoncoward111 8y agoAdditionally, there's only 144m people employed in the USA according to BLS, so 70 million is half the country :)
- mac01021 8y agoExcept that 70 million probably contains a lot of people not in the workforce. So it's not "apples to apples".
- anoncoward111 8y agoThen assume 50-60% are working and include the addition multi-million person metropoles I left out like BOS PHI PHX etc
- bzbarsky 8y agoAssuming that 50-60% of the population of cities is working is probably too high. As a simple example, the third table at https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/vital_statistics/2016/table01.htm https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/vital_statistics/2016/t... data for New York City for 2016. Total population is 8,537,673. Population under 18 is 1,798,888. Population over 64 is 1,155,075. That's 35% of the population right there. Some of them might be working, of course. For the kids, this is not likely to be more than 10% (which would be _all_ the 16 and 17 year olds, pretty much). For the seniors, let's guess 33% (pretty much everyone under 70). That leaves 28% of the population in the kid-or-senior age range and not-working and 7% in the kid-or-senior age range and working. To get to 50% overall working with those assumptions, you need 43% of the population to be prime age and working. The prime age population is 65% of the total. So you need 43/65 = 66% of the 18-65 age population working. But in 2017 (yes, I know, a year later; I haven't found the 2016 equivalent) https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/economic/labor-force-trends-nys-2017.pdf https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/economic/labor-force-tre... claims a labor force participation rate of just about 60% for NYC (see page numbered 14 in the document, page 17 of the PDF). And that's the rate for 25-64, which should be higher than the 18-64 rate, because as the document notes "people between the ages of 16 and 24 are more likely to be in high school or college". Page 15 of the document (page 18 of the PDF) does show labor force participation rates for 16-24 and 65+ in New York State and our "33%" above for seniors was likely a significant overestimate based on that, though it's hard to tell: NYC labor force participation may not match the overall state very well, obviously. Anyway, under the (imo optimistic) assumptions above, something like 45% of the overall population of NYC is in the labor force. Or in other words if you ignore the 18% of the population that is children under 15, it's about 55%. So your estimate was pretty close if you ignore the existence of kids... Or put another way, if the prime-age labor force participation rate is 60%, there's no way that 60% of the overall population is working. Just not possible.
- hueving 8y agoIt's easy to find decent living on $60k in DAL, HOU, CHI, and MIA if you're willing to go out to the suburbs where, guess what, tons of people live.
- anoncoward111 8y agoEven if there are millions of people (out of the 7m in Dallas) who are supposedly prospering on Texas' favorable housing/gas/income tax situation, this statistically is not the case in higher tax locations, such as the entire Northeast USA, Chicago, and all of California. Believe me, I want all of us to be like Texas.
- extra88 8y agoTaxation by the states is not people’s problems in the Northeast and “Northeast” contains a lot of variance in cost of living and economic outlook.
- anoncoward111 8y agoHow can you possibly assert this when property taxes in the Tri-State (23 million people) are often $10,000 a year per house, and income is taxed at 5-9% compared to Texas which is 0. The price of rent/mortgage is directly affected by property tax.
- extra88 8y agoHomeownership is not necessary for well-being. The absolute cost of property taxes in some parts of the Northeast are high because the properties are highly valued. Taxes are not robbery, people in higher taxed areas get more services than low-tax places like Texas. Higher property taxes correlate with higher rent but the inverse can be true when home buying (i.e. a seller can ask more for a home in a low property tax city than an otherwise identically situated high property tax city). The Northeast is a lot more than just the Tri-State area, there are plenty of communities that do no have high property taxes either in absolute terms (because the homes aren't worth much) or as a percentage (either because the areas offer less services or they have so much commercial income that home property taxes can be kept low).
- refurb 8y agoHouston is a place where $60k is enough to buy a house.
- anoncoward111 8y agoIs it enough, or just barely enough? I'm seeing a median home price of 300k per Zillow. In addition to coming up with the 15-60k needed to put a downpayment on the house, you are hit with $2,000 a month in mortgage/insurance. This hardly sounds like a steal to me because it is exactly what I am paying in NY. I make $2200 post tax per month, which is bang on the median income in this area. Half of my money goes to rent, the other half to car/food/health insurance and so on. Were I to lose my job or have kids, the situation would be completely unaffordable in a matter of months as opposed to years, which is the type of cushion the earlier generations had.
- refurb 8y agoZillows says median home price of $187,000.[1] Where did you get $300K? You could put $30K down and have a monthly payment of under $1,000 per month for mortgage, insurance and taxes. [1]https://www.zillow.com/houston-tx/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/houston-tx/home-values/
- branchless 8y agoMost Americans don't live in most of America.
- bobthepanda 8y agoPerhaps nitpicky, but it bothers me that their data representation is a psuedo-pie chart that isn’t even centered.
- fernmyth 8y agoNot nitpicky at all. It's a pointless, obfuscating blob of unhelpful colors violating basic principles of data visualization: - Sequential income brackets are not adjacent. The wage of each blob can only be understood by reading every number - Irregular shapes make it impossible to gauge size by eye - White text on green and pink backgrounds does not score well on WCAG. At least they had the decency to make the text bold.
- pjtr 8y agoI even think it's intentionally obfuscated. The obfuscation misleadingly suggests the arbitrarily chosen thresholds 30k and 50k are somehow meaningful. This encourages group-association-based / class-divide-based outrage-sharing, reinforcing the infighting between lower middle class and upper middle class.
- ForHackernews 8y agoLumping together $50k-$50M as though that's a meaningful interval is especially misleading.
- jdlyga 8y ago30k is very low. If your company offers 6 holidays per year, that equals out to $14.71 per hour. That's below minimum wage in New York City right now.
- a11595 8y ago30k is very high. That's above minimum wage in Wichita, Kansas, where the average rent for a 1 bedroom apartment is $470. see, anyone can make a sensationalist, obvious straw man.
- lovich 8y agoCommenting here since I can't t reply to the dead comment. How many people live in Wichita vs New York or a similarly expensive city? If half the country lives in metro areas then 14.71 is a low median wage
- ryanmercer 8y ago>30k is very low. Where you live >$14.71 per hour. That's below minimum wage in New York City right now Federal minimum wage is 7.25 and that is the minimum wage for many states as well, mine included. 30k is actually doing decent, after 12.5 years on the job I only make 33k with good reviews every year. If I was suddenly unemployed and had to go work retail I might get lucky and hire in at 8$ an hour.
- ausbah 8y ago>There is one important caveat to keep in mind when thinking about our dataset. The SSA numbers include any wage earners whatsoever, even part-time workers like students and teenagers. not leading with this feels like poor reporting
- ocschwar 8y agoStudents and minors don't make up anywhere near half of the working population, though.
- codeddesign 8y ago24% of the U.S. population is under the age of 18. If you include those that are in college, disabled, and retired then you are now at roughly 1/3 of the population. Based on the statististics provided in the article that would mean 75% of the population make above $30k.
- wtallis 8y ago> 24% of the U.S. population is under the age of 18. We're talking about the US workforce, not the whole population.
- a11595 8y agostudents and working-age minors are about 50% employed and about 15% of the population. This means the real under 30k number is now 40%. Median salary is 44k. I see absolutely nothing wrong with this statistic. The article is sensationalist and misleading. I'm going to guess the person who wrote it is making 30k, for lack of marketable skills and being a liar. I eyeballed all the numbers from here https://www.thebalancecareers.com/average-salary-information-for-us-workers-2060808 https://www.thebalancecareers.com/average-salary-information... https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-particip...
- uniformlyrandom 8y ago
- alkibiades 8y agostopped reading at "net". misleading title
- lorax 8y ago> 48% of wager earners had net compensation less than or equal to the median wage I'm surprised. I expected that 50% of wage earners would make less or equal to the median wage. If for no other reason than the definition of median.
- cybersol 8y agoYeah I looked for a * or reference of some kind, but did not find one. I think they are using 30k as the threshold for the 48% number, while the median is the 31k and change number.
- gumby 8y agoIt might have to do with rounding and the resolution of the cohort binning -- 48% being pretty close to 50%.
- tonysdg 8y agoUh, are you thinking mean? Median is lining up every salary, counting to N/2, and selecting the number you happen to fall on.
- ralusek 8y ago...which is exactly what they've described.
- sin7 8y agoTies. It's probably because of rounding.
- tomrod 8y agoSure. Median(Variable) = Probability(value<=Variable) = 50%.
- neaanopri 8y agoIf you're going to be this pedantic, 50 is greater than 48. They're not wrong.
- adamnemecek 8y agoThe crisis never ended, it just changed shape.
- revskill 8y agoWhich js library can help to create such clean visualization ?
- walrus01 8y agoThe greatest trick the 1% in America has ever accomplished is convincing people who make $30/hour that scary foreigners and people who want to raise their minimum wage to above-poverty levels are a threat to their way of life.
- natalyarostova 8y agoThe 1% aren't some clandestine group who trick people. Reality is just a highly complex set of different distributions of people interacting with each other, economic structure, government, and culture. Treat and solve it as a systems issue. Attributing maligned motives to small discretized sets of people doesn't solve problems.
- save_ferris 8y agoAgreed. What is the solution to this systems issue, in your opinion?
- natalyarostova 8y agoGather all the best ideas, and run lots of small decentralized experiments. Evaluate and iterate. I don't trust anyone who claims to see the solution as clearly as day.
- walrus01 8y agoI do not literally mean that there is an organized shadowy cabal of people wearing monocles sitting in smoke filled rooms scheming about ways to oppress low wage workers. However, thanks to court decisions like Citizens United, the sheer amount of money in lobbying, and revolving doors between government decision-making jobs and industry executive positions, wealthy business owners have never been in a better position to propagandize. Look at Sinclair's ownership of television stations for instance.
- shard972 8y agoUh what? The 1% are in favour of immigration as it increases the supply of labor which leads to a drop in the equilibrium price for labor.
- chrisbrandow 8y agoWould be awesome to see the same chart but broken down by what percentage of income each category represents
- jurassic 8y agoI feel this a lot in my own family. I’m in tech at a fairly privileged BigCo. Siblings work retail gigs for a small fraction of what I bring home. I’ve had raises and bonuses equal to what one of my siblings makes in a year.
- kough 8y agoOut of curiosity, do you subsidize your siblings? I'm going to be in the same situation and I'm not sure what I'm going to end up doing but I think I'm going to end up doing it.
- whatshisface 8y agoThat's a good way to get everyone to hate you.
- executesorder66 8y agoWhy would helping out your family with some financial stuff make everyone hate you? Or do you mean they might resent you if you do that?
- notyourwork 8y agoKeep your family and money separate. It usually always ends poorly otherwise.
- white-flame 8y agoI think the two terms used by you and the parent don't always overlap neatly: "your family" and "those you love"
- fzeroracer 8y agoSounds like you haven't had to deal with family members in abject poverty before? My parents can't work, for example. They're both disabled and rely on food stamps plus medicare just to survive. This puts a rather large financial burden on me at times to say the least, because I would rather not see my parents starve to death. If only we had a government that took better care of people in poverty. Imagine that.
- jungletime 8y agoAnyone know the software package used to create this graph? Was it photoshop :)
- mirimir 8y agoIt is a sad situation. But the article doesn't support the title. Because I only see one time point. And "vanishing" requires comparison. A few decades ago, at what was arguably the peak of the US middle class, relatively few adult married women worked outside the home. But of course, they did work. It's just that they didn't get paid. Or rather, they got paid through sharing their husbands' income. What's happened since is that both partners often work, but aggregate inflation-adjusted income (aka household income) has stagnated. Maybe even declined. Anyway, the point is that, a few decades ago, maybe 30%-40% of workers earned nothing. So to get meaningful results, you need to look at aggregate household income over time. Including both partners, and children. And you also need to net out childcare expenses. Also, I note that TFA relies on W2 data. So what about consultants, whose income is reported on 1099s? But maybe they're a minor factor, and can be ignored. And finally, it's my impression that executive incomes are typically capped at a $million or so. With the rest paid as stock options and such.
- redbeard0x0a 8y agoOne problem with the aggregate household income being added up is there isn't an accounting for worked hours (basically doubling the hours by having 2 people working for a company). A different, but simple comparison would be to take minimum wage in 1968 ($1.60), adjust for inflation ($11.62 - 2017) and then compare to our current minimum wage ($7.25). So had minimum wage been tied to inflation, it would be right around $12/hr right now.
- mirimir 8y agoArguably you're not doubling the hours. Because decades ago, women worked at home, but weren't paid.
- octorian 8y agoAnd then you should also factor in the value of the work women did at home, and weren't paid for. Because they're now having to pay someone else to do that work, which reduces the effective income gain of them working.
- mc32 8y agoYet many talking heads insist that cheap (under the table) labor from undocumented workers has negligible effect on earnings of poorly educated Americans (rural or inner city). They still think abandoning TPP was bad, that playing tough with China is bad. Dems used to protect the working class till the 80s, they used to be anti-globalists (till Clinton) then they got the fever for corporate money and sold them down the river and only half heartedly pay lip service to them. The only one left caring is Bernie, but he’s too far left for traditional labor.
- dzonga 8y agobut hey capitalism, is the greatest invention since we discovered we could wipe our behinds. Problem, with America is there's a lot of embarrassed 'to-be' millionaires. Once everyone accept it's okay to be average and life a average lifestyle safe-guarded by the a social net, a lot of people will be lifted from poverty.
- 11thEarlOfMar 8y agoWould be interested to know the composition of retirees subsisting on social security checks. Also, I believe this is individual income, rather than household. Wondering how much different the picture would be on a household income basis.
- skilled 8y agoI honestly wonder are people that delusional that they overlook the ridiculous debt that the country is in? Don't get me wrong, I am not from America myself but I have a lot of friends from there, and I generally don't hear anything good about the 'American dream'. If you take a hard step back, like way back. And take a moment to look at the "situation" with an outside perspective, don't you think it's a little ridiculous that the debt keeps growing, and somehow the numbers get adjusted, and more loans are given. And it makes me wonder, if this is not being actively resolved now, then when? In a 1,000 years? I have a hard time believing that society is going to survive that long with all the idiocracy that's going on.
- rainsil 8y agoThe national debt problem is somewhat overblown in popular opinion. Sovereign debt, in a country that pays it in its own currency, is bounded by inflation, not tax receipts. In practice this means that the US can reduce its debt to more manageable levels by permitting mild inflation (something I can see the Fed doing) and instituting greater fiscal responsibility at the federal level (perhaps less likely). Also, it's important to note that strictly speaking, growing debt doesn't matter as long as the GDP grows by the same amount. Of course, that's not happening, so there is a problem. But as long as there is some leeway for inflation to increase (which there currently is), the debt is ultimately manageable.
- JDiculous 8y agoGovernment debt denominated in one's own currency is not really a serious issue because governments can print their own currency to pay it off. Yes this can result in inflation, but the inflationary effects are vastly overstated. Most of the inflation happens at the point of spending. I recommend reading up on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/01/diagrams-dollars-modern-money-illustrated-part-1.html http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/01/diagrams-dollars-...
- seibelj 8y agoMMT says that printing money has no effect if you give it to certain people. I’ve yet to hear of a real-world example where a major economy doubles or triples their monetary supply with no negative effect, which is what MMT will have you believe (“don’t give it to the banks - give it to poor people in Idaho!”). If it sounds too good to be true then it is.
- largehotcoffee 8y ago>48% of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the median wage Isn't that how math works?
- lotyrin 8y agoDefinitely a weird thing to highlight as a "surprise" but also not quite right, since it should be exactly half... and also that portion of the pie should be a semicircle (around 180 degrees even if it's 48%)... but it's significantly smaller than that somehow?
- ThePadawan 8y agoIt does point out that wage is still and predominantly the biggest factor in net compensation. This is assuming that bonuses, commissions etc. count as compensation, but not wages.
- lucozade 8y agoNet compensation includes bonuses and such. It's not just wages. The 48% figure is the cumulative total of people with net compensation < 30k. So it's not wrong by construction just oddly misleading. If you look at the SSA data, It also highlights that the mean net compensation is about $48k. And 67.4% of wage earners have net comp below that figure. Which is in line with the graphic.
- fromthestart 8y ago>There is one important caveat to keep in mind when thinking about our dataset. The SSA numbers include any wage earners whatsoever, even part-time workers like students and teenagers. This drags down the aggregate wage numbers for full-time working adults, which reach $61,372 for households last year. So...what do the statistics look like if we remove part time teenagers and students? I suspect much less attention grabbing than the headline.
- rayiner 8y agoIf $30,000 per year is "substandard" then the rest of the developed world must be positively impoverished: https://mises.org/wire/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden-and-germany-rank-Kentucky https://mises.org/wire/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden.... There's a very legitimate criticism to be made about the plight of the poor in the U.S. But the U.S. middle class has it better than almost everyone else in the world. They make a lot more money than in Europe, and pay far less taxes. (Indeed, the poor in the U.S. are so bad off precisely because the middle class pays far less taxes compared to their European counterparts. The difference between Trump's tax code and Sweden's is not corporate tax rates, but individual tax rates, particularly for people outside the top 1%.) In reality, $30,000 is a pretty decent income for a young single person in Atlanta, where a 1BR apartment near a subway stop can be had well under $1,000. It's tough for someone trying to support a family of four, but by and large those people don't make $30,000. The median income for people 35+ is $50,000. And the median household income of a married couple with kids is $85,000. There is also the fact that, even if there were zero income inequality (everybody got paid the same), the median income would be about $50,000 (13 trillion in personal income divided by about 250 million working-age people).
- fzeroracer 8y agoThis is remarkably ignorant of the actual circumstances that lower-class Americans have to deal with, especially when you share almost improbable statistics that are completely out of touch with reality. 30,000 is far from a decent income considering people get gouged on health insurance, which effectively functions as another tax on their post-tax income. When you start adding in the costs of food, internet, phone, utilities etc the end result is much more dire. This is not even counting the fact that Americans work more for less, considering people in Sweden, your example, I guarantee you get far more time off, have more job security and considerably better benefits.
- tptacek 8y agoAt $30,000, a family likely qualifies for Medicaid in their state.
- ryanmarsh 8y agoThis is chart junk. The issue raised in the opening paragraph is a change in wages. Therefore it should be represented as a time-series chart (line, bar, etc...). This is a static view. The different categories are nestled together in a way that obscures their relationship to their neighbors. The income groups are not categorical groups they're subranges. They should be next to each other in a progression. This graphic is confusing and unhelpful. This probably could have been done well with a steam graph. Maybe a slope graph. I'd have to see the data and it depends on what they're really trying to show.
- peterwwillis 8y agoWell let's pile some more random data onto this tire fire and jump to some conclusions. (edit: comparing 2015 to 2017) How much do Americans earn? 2015 data [1]: median household income was $52K. If you're white. If you're black, the median is $34K. So, only like, 1/3 less. Or if you're asian, the median is $72K. 2017 data [2]: median household income apparently jumps to $62k. If you're white it's $65k, black it's $40k, asian $81k. Then the Social Security data (from 2013) shows the median net compensation for individuals is $28K. And according to tax data, the bottom 50% of taxpayers make less than $34K. Since the poverty level for a family of 4 (in 2017) is $25k, that means a majority of families of 4 (which, again have to pay 4x for more food, clothing, transportation, education, and miscellaneous) have a bit more than subsistence level money. 2017 data [3]: Census claims the poverty level for a household of 1 is $12k. What? Who the fuck is living in America on $12k a year? Adding up all the people making less than $15k comes to ~28% of Americans, or 92 million people, just above to below poverty level (SSA data for 2017 [5]). But Census poverty data [6] says only 12% are in poverty. There's a huge gap between the SSA's numbers of people and their net compensation, compared to the Census's formulation of how many people are in poverty. How is there a gap of 52 million people in calculating the poverty rate? Can someone point out what's going on? GDP is also higher than median household income, which doesn't take inflation into account. [1] http://www.mybudget360.com/how-much-do-americans-earn-in-2015-household-income-wages-real-income-gdp/ http://www.mybudget360.com/how-much-do-americans-earn-in-201... [2] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/263/table1.xls https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/263... [3] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-series/historical-poverty-thresholds/thresh17.xls https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-ser... [4] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-26... [5] https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2017 https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2017 [6] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-26... edit: in the Census report (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...) they mention that you have to adjust all pre-2014 numbers by increasing them by 3.14 percent, due to changes in reporting....
- sascha_sl 8y ago
- justaguyhere 8y agoAnyone else having a hard time with the infograph? Why not just use the usual rectangular shape instead of circle?
- notacoward 8y agoWhat a weird way to visualize this data. A simple histogram or CDF plot would have shown the patterns quite well. This way it's hard to follow the bands and blobs, which seem to be based on completely arbitrary cutoffs. It doesn't even seem to follow its own strange logic, jumping suddenly from just under $100K (1% per blob) to over $100K (8%) in a different part of the diagram. Why would anyone do this?
- pockettanyas 8y agoI totally agree, it's not a very clear way to show the data.
- g9yuayon 8y agoYet many parents still think that nerds are boring. Many students still bully those who focus on academic excellence. Teachers still think that students should learn easy peasy stuff because, well, "everyone is fking unique", or let's leave no child behind. The end result? The people in the middle ground, aka most children, will be left behind.
- zswinton 8y agoI used to work om many of those undertable gigs in order to get something to eat in the evening. Later I figured out more about taxable gigs and 1099-MISC here: https://1099-misc-form.pdffiller.com/ https://1099-misc-form.pdffiller.com/ (actually a copypaste from the IRS website) and was puzzled about how some young people actually supposed to live a decent life and pay that amount of their wages to a government as well