1) Good question. In my experience it's generally around a 1-2% gain over inflation, although in reality that dropped a lot for many workers since 2009 as comp

1) Good question. In my experience it's generally around a 1-2% gain over inflation, although in reality that dropped a lot for many workers since 2009 as companies raced to cut costs. But compounded over let's say 20 years, you're looking at 22-49% over starting fresh. Manufacturing is an interesting case beyond this since a lot of jobs were unionized and came with tenure benefits in excess of my numbers above. 2) In a purely rational way, yes. However, a) I'm most interested in discussing average scenarios which in this case is young people = generally mortgageless and childless, older people = generally have children and associated costs b) It often ends up more complicated than that when you factor in social safety nets. You could very well do better by not taking a job that allows you to barely scrape by and instead take the government assistance. c) Rationalizing away a massive decrease in standard of living for a significant number of people as, effectively, "at least they're not homeless" is one of the ways you end up with massive inequality and eventually the populism push we're seeing now leading potentially to something akin to the French Revolution. I think we can find a better solution. This is exactly the kind of discussion that has been missing on a national level until very recently.