7 ms·

How is this surprising in a world with increasing global labor supply and levels of automation?

thatfrenchguy 7y ago
It’s clearly societal choices: wages in the US for the poor and lower middle class are really low compared to the cost of housing / decent food / health care / education.
- shuckles 7y ago
  I’m not sure about “decent food”, but costs in the other categories are pretty decoupled from trends anywhere else in the world.
  - dantheman 7y ago
    And they're a direct result of government policy.
  - ChrisLomont 7y ago
    Only US healthcare is an outlier in costs among OECD countries. Housing, food, etc., costs are similar.
    - thatcat 7y ago
      Transportation cost is higher thanks to poor infrastructure. Rent for a single bedroom is higher thanks to poor zoning/building code regulations.
      - nonford150 7y ago
        Rent is higher in some areas due to market forces. If I have an apartment and can rent it out for $2500/month why shouldn't I? A 1 bedroom in my immediate are rents for @1800/month. Go 5 miles down the road and the same space rents for $1000-1200/month. Differences? "Desirability" "newness" "better schools (which makes no sense if you don't have kids" "atmosphere (I read everyone looks like me)" You can go into some older areas of the city and find rents below $800/month.
        falcolas 7y ago
        > If I have an apartment and can rent it out for $2500/month why shouldn't I? Perhaps because “you” value morals other than “make the most money I possibly can”? Or you want to provide housing that’s affordable by those who do the blue collar, nearly-minimum-wage work that powers our modern cities? Profit isn’t everything. I’ll even go so far as to say that the current expectation to get “maximum profits at any cost” is a (“The”?) driving factor in the problems we lament in our society.
        nonford150 7y ago
        Yes profit isn't everything. Providing a safe, clean place to rent is foremost. But - if $2500 is the market rate for that living space there is no reason not to charge the market rate. The goal of a rental space is to meet those forces. A lower wage worker should expect less amenities, but not should be expected to live in an unsafe dirty place.
        thatcat 7y ago
        The difference in price between an efficiency / 1br / 2br is often negligible. Explain the market force cause of this. Let's consider why older housing is so much cheaper for a second.. Property tax isn't recalculated until you update the building or rebuild on the property. So it's a huge disincentive to ever change any buildings, split lots, etc.
        bsanr2 7y ago
        Market forces shaped by poor zoning and building codes. $800/m is still precarious for roughly twice minimum wage. Food is also more expensive and harder to get to in less upscale areas of most cities.
        JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Not sure how zoning and codes raises housing prices? Poor codes would result in cheaper housing (with no alarms or sprinkler, weak roofs that collapse under snow load, thin walls etc). And zoning can definitely reduce housing costs. In my city developers were required to mix single-family and multiplex in neighborhoods.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      Education, healthcare, transportation -- not to mention bad public services...
      - ChrisLomont 7y ago
        >Education Do you mean pre-college? In which case the US spends more per pupil than OECD average by quite a bit. If you mean college, then most OECD countries have nowhere the number of people in college as the US. And there are ample cheap local colleges in the US - people choose more costly ones because they can. >healthcare Yep, I stated that one. We're about twice the per capita cost as OECD countries. That cost is spread through the system, including doctor and nurse salaries being quite a bit higher. This is likely due to Baumol's Cost Disease, since almost all higher skilled jobs in the US pay about twice OECD countries. So to drive our cost to OECD levels, you'd need to mandate locally low salaries for doctors and nurses, which would result in lower quality care. I'm not sure what a solution is here, but it's highly nontrivial. >transportation Gas far cheaper in the US than OECD average, and likely cheaper than most if not all OECD countries. Or did you mean in city busses? In which case ours are similar. Or did you mean metro tickets? Again, same cost. Or are you talking about intra-city routes, in which case again we're similar costs. Please clarify with data. >not to mention bad public services... All depends on where you live. To compare the US (by area and population) to somewhere else, you'd need to include the entire EU, or all of OECD, in which case you're adding places with terrible services. If you want to pick small, nice countries, then pick small, nice states, and again, very similar.
        JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Yes! Surprising how European countries compare to the US in size. All of England and Wales fits nicely within the US state of Iowa for instance.
        coldtea 7y ago
        On the other hand, they are ~50 million.
        7y ago
- opportune 7y ago
  The lower middle class can afford decent food, just some of them don’t want to eat within their means or aren’t cost conscious. Actually I think innumeracy is a big problem for a lot of people with low incomes. I have a relative who I suspect is innumerate and it’s both fascinating and sad when you get insight into their budgeting/estimation abilities.
  - inkwater 7y ago
    >innumeracy is a big problem for a lot of people with low incomes the wavefront of the system of global capital since agriculture has been the liquidation of peoples for whom mass codified exchanges of increasing complexity didn't compute
  - pnutjam 7y ago
    Wow, that fancy talking sure makes me think you're smart. Maybe you can help me. If I make x and everything I need to live costs x+y, what do I do? Die slowly...? Work a 27 hour day?
    - opportune 7y ago
      I’m not saying the system isn’t rigged against poor people. But I do personally know people who are just bad at budgeting or frequently get ripped off because they don’t know how much things are supposed to cost, and probably wouldn’t need to ask for help at the end of the month if they changed how they spent money.
      - pnutjam 7y ago
        Often, people know what something should cost, but they have to buy it through some other more expensive channel for any variety of reasons.
      - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
        I know a lot of upper middle class people in the Bay Area as well who don't know how much stuff is supposed to cost and get ripped off all the time as well ;-).
- ChrisLomont 7y ago
  Do you have data for this? Everywhere I look puts the US among the very best. For example, here [1] is UK by quintile: In 2017/18, the average UK household income before housing costs was: top quintile: £52,000 second highest quintile: £34,700 middle quintile: £26,400 second lowest quintile: £20,000 bottom quintile: £13,100 The average UK household income after housing costs was: top quintile: £47,700 second highest quintile: £30,900 middle quintile: £22,800 second lowest quintile: £16,100 bottom quintile: £9,200 Here [2] is the US, 2018 quntiles: 13,775; 37,293; 63,572 ; 101,570; 233,895 PPP Adjusted means adjusted to cost of living [3]. Adjusting the incomes above gives for the bottom 20% of US $13.7K income, for UK $13.1K. From all the data I can see over many countries, the US poor and lower middle class are doing much better than almost any place in the world. [1] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-and-benefits/pay-and-income/income-distribution/latest https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-... [2] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p... [3] https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-ppp.htm https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-p...
  - pnutjam 7y ago
    The US is huge, numbers in one area can be very high or very low and skew things significantly. It doesn't help most American's if salaries are pulled up (in the average) by a high cost of living area, and housing is pulled down (in the average) by a different area 300 miles away. You see this alot in school data. The top 90% of schools would, if averaged, put the US in top standing. However, those bottom 10% pull us down (alot). The big fight in America right now is whether we cut those bottom 10% and say EOBAD's (GOP), or work to help them catch up (Democrats).
  - thatcat 7y ago
    US is number 1 in manipulating GDP and job metrics.
  - mertd 7y ago
    You are overlooking healthcare costs. Most Americans are one fractured leg away from bankruptcy.
- badrequest 7y ago
  I must have missed the meeting where all of society got together and chose this fate for ourselves.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

It’s clearly societal choices: wages in the US for the poor and lower middle class are really low compared to the cost of housing / decent food / health care / education.

shuckles 7y ago
I’m not sure about “decent food”, but costs in the other categories are pretty decoupled from trends anywhere else in the world.
- dantheman 7y ago
  And they're a direct result of government policy.
- ChrisLomont 7y ago
  Only US healthcare is an outlier in costs among OECD countries. Housing, food, etc., costs are similar.
  - thatcat 7y ago
    Transportation cost is higher thanks to poor infrastructure. Rent for a single bedroom is higher thanks to poor zoning/building code regulations.
    - nonford150 7y ago
      Rent is higher in some areas due to market forces. If I have an apartment and can rent it out for $2500/month why shouldn't I? A 1 bedroom in my immediate are rents for @1800/month. Go 5 miles down the road and the same space rents for $1000-1200/month. Differences? "Desirability" "newness" "better schools (which makes no sense if you don't have kids" "atmosphere (I read everyone looks like me)" You can go into some older areas of the city and find rents below $800/month.
      - falcolas 7y ago
        > If I have an apartment and can rent it out for $2500/month why shouldn't I? Perhaps because “you” value morals other than “make the most money I possibly can”? Or you want to provide housing that’s affordable by those who do the blue collar, nearly-minimum-wage work that powers our modern cities? Profit isn’t everything. I’ll even go so far as to say that the current expectation to get “maximum profits at any cost” is a (“The”?) driving factor in the problems we lament in our society.
        nonford150 7y ago
        Yes profit isn't everything. Providing a safe, clean place to rent is foremost. But - if $2500 is the market rate for that living space there is no reason not to charge the market rate. The goal of a rental space is to meet those forces. A lower wage worker should expect less amenities, but not should be expected to live in an unsafe dirty place.
      - thatcat 7y ago
        The difference in price between an efficiency / 1br / 2br is often negligible. Explain the market force cause of this. Let's consider why older housing is so much cheaper for a second.. Property tax isn't recalculated until you update the building or rebuild on the property. So it's a huge disincentive to ever change any buildings, split lots, etc.
      - bsanr2 7y ago
        Market forces shaped by poor zoning and building codes. $800/m is still precarious for roughly twice minimum wage. Food is also more expensive and harder to get to in less upscale areas of most cities.
        JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Not sure how zoning and codes raises housing prices? Poor codes would result in cheaper housing (with no alarms or sprinkler, weak roofs that collapse under snow load, thin walls etc). And zoning can definitely reduce housing costs. In my city developers were required to mix single-family and multiplex in neighborhoods.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Education, healthcare, transportation -- not to mention bad public services...
    - ChrisLomont 7y ago
      >Education Do you mean pre-college? In which case the US spends more per pupil than OECD average by quite a bit. If you mean college, then most OECD countries have nowhere the number of people in college as the US. And there are ample cheap local colleges in the US - people choose more costly ones because they can. >healthcare Yep, I stated that one. We're about twice the per capita cost as OECD countries. That cost is spread through the system, including doctor and nurse salaries being quite a bit higher. This is likely due to Baumol's Cost Disease, since almost all higher skilled jobs in the US pay about twice OECD countries. So to drive our cost to OECD levels, you'd need to mandate locally low salaries for doctors and nurses, which would result in lower quality care. I'm not sure what a solution is here, but it's highly nontrivial. >transportation Gas far cheaper in the US than OECD average, and likely cheaper than most if not all OECD countries. Or did you mean in city busses? In which case ours are similar. Or did you mean metro tickets? Again, same cost. Or are you talking about intra-city routes, in which case again we're similar costs. Please clarify with data. >not to mention bad public services... All depends on where you live. To compare the US (by area and population) to somewhere else, you'd need to include the entire EU, or all of OECD, in which case you're adding places with terrible services. If you want to pick small, nice countries, then pick small, nice states, and again, very similar.
      - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Yes! Surprising how European countries compare to the US in size. All of England and Wales fits nicely within the US state of Iowa for instance.
        coldtea 7y ago
        On the other hand, they are ~50 million.
      - 7y ago
opportune 7y ago
The lower middle class can afford decent food, just some of them don’t want to eat within their means or aren’t cost conscious. Actually I think innumeracy is a big problem for a lot of people with low incomes. I have a relative who I suspect is innumerate and it’s both fascinating and sad when you get insight into their budgeting/estimation abilities.
- inkwater 7y ago
  >innumeracy is a big problem for a lot of people with low incomes the wavefront of the system of global capital since agriculture has been the liquidation of peoples for whom mass codified exchanges of increasing complexity didn't compute
- pnutjam 7y ago
  Wow, that fancy talking sure makes me think you're smart. Maybe you can help me. If I make x and everything I need to live costs x+y, what do I do? Die slowly...? Work a 27 hour day?
  - opportune 7y ago
    I’m not saying the system isn’t rigged against poor people. But I do personally know people who are just bad at budgeting or frequently get ripped off because they don’t know how much things are supposed to cost, and probably wouldn’t need to ask for help at the end of the month if they changed how they spent money.
    - pnutjam 7y ago
      Often, people know what something should cost, but they have to buy it through some other more expensive channel for any variety of reasons.
    - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
      I know a lot of upper middle class people in the Bay Area as well who don't know how much stuff is supposed to cost and get ripped off all the time as well ;-).
ChrisLomont 7y ago
Do you have data for this? Everywhere I look puts the US among the very best. For example, here [1] is UK by quintile: In 2017/18, the average UK household income before housing costs was: top quintile: £52,000 second highest quintile: £34,700 middle quintile: £26,400 second lowest quintile: £20,000 bottom quintile: £13,100 The average UK household income after housing costs was: top quintile: £47,700 second highest quintile: £30,900 middle quintile: £22,800 second lowest quintile: £16,100 bottom quintile: £9,200 Here [2] is the US, 2018 quntiles: 13,775; 37,293; 63,572 ; 101,570; 233,895 PPP Adjusted means adjusted to cost of living [3]. Adjusting the incomes above gives for the bottom 20% of US $13.7K income, for UK $13.1K. From all the data I can see over many countries, the US poor and lower middle class are doing much better than almost any place in the world. [1] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-and-benefits/pay-and-income/income-distribution/latest https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-... [2] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p... [3] https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-ppp.htm https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-p...
- pnutjam 7y ago
  The US is huge, numbers in one area can be very high or very low and skew things significantly. It doesn't help most American's if salaries are pulled up (in the average) by a high cost of living area, and housing is pulled down (in the average) by a different area 300 miles away. You see this alot in school data. The top 90% of schools would, if averaged, put the US in top standing. However, those bottom 10% pull us down (alot). The big fight in America right now is whether we cut those bottom 10% and say EOBAD's (GOP), or work to help them catch up (Democrats).
- thatcat 7y ago
  US is number 1 in manipulating GDP and job metrics.
- mertd 7y ago
  You are overlooking healthcare costs. Most Americans are one fractured leg away from bankruptcy.
badrequest 7y ago
I must have missed the meeting where all of society got together and chose this fate for ourselves.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]