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I appreciate your response. To be honest it's a bit of chart/graph overload for me. If you've got the moment I'd appreciate and find helpful your take on this -

I appreciate your response. To be honest it's a bit of chart/graph overload for me. If you've got the moment I'd appreciate and find helpful your take on this - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... Is the article talking about something different? Would you say they're incorrect? Is their data old? Etc. To me it seems they're arguing real wages haven't increased that much in the last 40 years. Also I just want to point out, that the very end of your article about wages increasing for low-wage workers, says: "That's not to say that low-paid workers have it easy. According to the Tax Policy Center, the bottom 20% of households are earning typical annual income of about $13,300. By comparison, the top 20% of U.S. households earn about $221,000 annually, or nearly 17 times more than the lowest quintile." My interpretation is, who cares if there's a 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr if neither of those is a decent living wage to begin with, and the folks at the top of the pyramid are just making staggering amounts of money? The top 20% averages $220K, the top 1% ... much much more. Which is a bit off-topic, but, at the end of the day economics itself is about people, otherwise there'd be no point! : )

bhupy 6y ago
> Is the article talking about something different? Would you say they're incorrect? Is their data old? Etc. It's probably a combination of a couple things. 1) the article's editorializing of the data doesn't match up with the actual raw data -> https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N. This raw FRED data is basically as close to the "primary source" as you can get with this sort of thing. 2) the article looks at total benefits costs and compares them with total wages and salaries, which should set off a couple alarm bells: in the US total compensation is what we need to look at. Basically, they're double counting healthcare costs by ignoring the fact that employers pay the majority of premium costs (https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2019-section-6-worker-and-employer-contributions-for-premiums/attachment/figure-6-4-16/ https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2019-section-6-worke...), while also counting the full cost of those benefits against the after-wage dollar amounts. In other words, we've all been receiving huge phantom raises, and we just don't know it because it doesn't show up in our bank accounts. 3) They don't take into account taxes and transfers, which median earners broadly enjoy. To give you a sense, here's what the median disposable income looks like after taxes & transfers, by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Median https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c... > My interpretation is, who cares if there's a 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr if neither of those is a decent living wage to begin with, and the folks at the top of the pyramid are just making staggering amounts of money? Because that 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr tells us very little about a single earner's pay history — it presupposes that a single person stays at that level for the entirety of their life (which we know not to be true). Those numbers show us the snapshot-in-time income numbers for everyone currently at that salary level, but does not account for people actually moving income levels as they progress in their career. The data isn't "here's the life of Joe over the last 5 years", it's "here's the life of people without college degrees that are X years old with Y years of experience with X & Y held constant over 5 years". I suppose "the lowest quintile wage has modestly increased over time" has a different ring to it than "the entry level starting salary has modestly increased over time". Also, this is a bit more debatable, but one can also argue if it really matters if the people at the top are making staggering amounts of money, if people in the middle tier (again, not a static group) are also doing better, despite being of (predominately) lower skill — especially since that staggering increase at the top doesn't happen in a vacuum, it's because our system rewards those who play an outsized role in providing goods & services that increase our collective standards of living.
- adamsea 6y ago
  Thank you! Much appreciated, and interesting. > The data isn't "here's the life of Joe over the last 5 years", it's "here's the life of people without college degrees that are X years old with Y years of experience with X & Y held constant over 5 years" That's an excellent point. I think that, for various reasons, I've been generalizing more in our discussion and you have been making much more specific and limited claims. One reason I've been generalizing is that I don't know a lot about this stuff : ). I guess my natural next question is, why do young people (to generalize) feel screwed over by our current economy?
  - bhupy 6y ago
    No problem! You've been a lot of fun to talk with, so thanks for that. > I guess my natural next question is, why do young people (to generalize) feel screwed over by our current economy? If I were to guess, it's probably because young people have experienced now not 1, but 2 major crises in their lifetime (2008, 2020). Young people also have congregated to some of the most expensive metros in the US, and those localities have done a terrible job building enough housing to keep up with demand. I think the collective angst is justified, but needs to be contextualized so that we don't prescribe the wrong solutions.
    - adamsea 6y ago
      +1 : )

bhupy 6y ago

> Is the article talking about something different? Would you say they're incorrect? Is their data old? Etc. It's probably a combination of a couple things. 1) the article's editorializing of the data doesn't match up with the actual raw data -> https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N. This raw FRED data is basically as close to the "primary source" as you can get with this sort of thing. 2) the article looks at total benefits costs and compares them with total wages and salaries, which should set off a couple alarm bells: in the US total compensation is what we need to look at. Basically, they're double counting healthcare costs by ignoring the fact that employers pay the majority of premium costs (https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2019-section-6-worker-and-employer-contributions-for-premiums/attachment/figure-6-4-16/ https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2019-section-6-worke...), while also counting the full cost of those benefits against the after-wage dollar amounts. In other words, we've all been receiving huge phantom raises, and we just don't know it because it doesn't show up in our bank accounts. 3) They don't take into account taxes and transfers, which median earners broadly enjoy. To give you a sense, here's what the median disposable income looks like after taxes & transfers, by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Median https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c... > My interpretation is, who cares if there's a 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr if neither of those is a decent living wage to begin with, and the folks at the top of the pyramid are just making staggering amounts of money? Because that 50% wage increase from $10/hr to $15/hr tells us very little about a single earner's pay history — it presupposes that a single person stays at that level for the entirety of their life (which we know not to be true). Those numbers show us the snapshot-in-time income numbers for everyone currently at that salary level, but does not account for people actually moving income levels as they progress in their career. The data isn't "here's the life of Joe over the last 5 years", it's "here's the life of people without college degrees that are X years old with Y years of experience with X & Y held constant over 5 years". I suppose "the lowest quintile wage has modestly increased over time" has a different ring to it than "the entry level starting salary has modestly increased over time". Also, this is a bit more debatable, but one can also argue if it really matters if the people at the top are making staggering amounts of money, if people in the middle tier (again, not a static group) are also doing better, despite being of (predominately) lower skill — especially since that staggering increase at the top doesn't happen in a vacuum, it's because our system rewards those who play an outsized role in providing goods & services that increase our collective standards of living.

adamsea 6y ago
Thank you! Much appreciated, and interesting. > The data isn't "here's the life of Joe over the last 5 years", it's "here's the life of people without college degrees that are X years old with Y years of experience with X & Y held constant over 5 years" That's an excellent point. I think that, for various reasons, I've been generalizing more in our discussion and you have been making much more specific and limited claims. One reason I've been generalizing is that I don't know a lot about this stuff : ). I guess my natural next question is, why do young people (to generalize) feel screwed over by our current economy?
- bhupy 6y ago
  No problem! You've been a lot of fun to talk with, so thanks for that. > I guess my natural next question is, why do young people (to generalize) feel screwed over by our current economy? If I were to guess, it's probably because young people have experienced now not 1, but 2 major crises in their lifetime (2008, 2020). Young people also have congregated to some of the most expensive metros in the US, and those localities have done a terrible job building enough housing to keep up with demand. I think the collective angst is justified, but needs to be contextualized so that we don't prescribe the wrong solutions.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    +1 : )