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Average annual wages in the United States for was $63,000 for the most recent year available.[1] Average annual hours worked was 1,779 per year.[2] That implies

Average annual wages in the United States for was $63,000 for the most recent year available.[1] Average annual hours worked was 1,779 per year.[2] That implies an average wage of $35/hour. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w... [2]https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm

ardy42 6y ago
That doesn't contradict the actual article, whose full title is: > If Worker Pay Had Kept Pace With Productivity Gains Since 1968, Today's Minimum Wage Would Be $24 an Hour It looks like when it was shortened one of its most important words were dropped.
- deegles 6y ago
  Sorry, I was trying to make it fit the character limit :(
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Title-smithing is an art. Email the mods if you're stuck; hn@ycombinator.com (I have, with some shorter suggestions.)
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  That makes more sense. But keep in mind that only 2.3% of hourly workers make minimum wage.[1] It's not really fair to compare productivity (a mean) or even median output to wages at the second percentile. It's an interesting question in its own right. Do the very lowest paid people in the economy have it better or worse than 50 years ago. I don't know the full answer to that question, but I do know that in 1968 about 5% of American households didn't have full indoor plumbing.[2] Just based on that datum, I'd much rather trade places with a very poor American in 2020 than 1968. [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm [2] https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2004/data/papers/SS04_Panel1_Paper17.pdf https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2004/data/papers/SS0...
  - nroets 6y ago
    When I was in the US, I saw someone offering free phones to the unemployed (Obama phone). Food stamps being used. FEMA given new houses to people left homeless by hurricane Michael. I even met people whose diet consisted mainly of expired food. They had to fish it out of dumpsters, which wasn't nice. But they had free food!
- refurb 6y ago
  That makes sense, but why would productivity gains be equally applied across all wage levels? You'd naturally expect it to be unequal based on the productivity gains in specific job functions.
ruined 6y ago
As noted in your first link, average wage is misleading because the high end is incomprehensibly large (and is where most growth has taken place) and that skews the result. >The wage distribution is right-skewed; the majority of people earn less than the average wage. For an alternative measure, the median household income uses median instead of average.
- ochoseis 6y ago
  Agreed, a comparison of the median is better. Although, it’d be nice if the mean and median weren’t too far apart.
- bhupy 6y ago
  Yup, you're right. The real median personal income in the US, today is $35,977 -> https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N Unfortunately I'm having a hard time finding the median number of annual hours worked. But using the average hours worked, that puts the median worker at $20/hr. Obviously not perfect unless we can get the median hours worked. Also, like other commenters have said, I don't think anyone has ever claimed that the bulk of productivity gains will go equally to the minimum wage as the median wage, since the latter is usually pretty low leverage work in general.
  - sixstrings 6y ago
    Is that net or gross? And assuming 30 days of vacation at 7,5 hours each, are those 225 hours part of the equation? Interesting to see how those numbers aren’t as drastically different from my country as I’d assumed.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      Someone making $35k isn't getting 30 days of vacation in the US. Maybe 10 days of combined sick days and vacation.
  - OscarCunningham 6y ago
    > Obviously not perfect unless we can get the median hours worked. Even then, the median annual wage divided by the median annual number of hours worked won't necessarily be equal to the median hourly wage.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
"Average" anything in populations with large ranges is a terrible, terrible measure. As the joke goes, Bill Gates walks into a bar, and on average everyone in the bar is a millionaire. Median is the appropriate statistic for such cases.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  Along these lines, here's a graph from the Federal Reserve's data service which plots median household income in contrast to GDP per household over time. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=bOfK https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=bOfK Note the increasing spread between GDP/household and median income. That's the US's entire socioeconomic problem--from rising consumer debt levels, rising deaths of despair, and the rise of reactionary politics--shown in one chart. The median person is falling behind.
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  Yeah, I actually agree. But the article is directly citing productivity, which by definition is the average economic output per hour worked. It's fine if you want to focus on median wages, but at the same time you need to compare against the median worker's economic output- not aggregate productivity. Otherwise you're just comparing apples to oranges.
downrightmike 6y ago
A good chuck of that average is all the workers that are structurally unemployed and will only accelerate https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-big-structural-unemployment/ https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-big-structural-...

ardy42 6y ago

That doesn't contradict the actual article, whose full title is: > If Worker Pay Had Kept Pace With Productivity Gains Since 1968, Today's Minimum Wage Would Be $24 an Hour It looks like when it was shortened one of its most important words were dropped.

deegles 6y ago
Sorry, I was trying to make it fit the character limit :(
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Title-smithing is an art. Email the mods if you're stuck; hn@ycombinator.com (I have, with some shorter suggestions.)
dcolkitt 6y ago
That makes more sense. But keep in mind that only 2.3% of hourly workers make minimum wage.[1] It's not really fair to compare productivity (a mean) or even median output to wages at the second percentile. It's an interesting question in its own right. Do the very lowest paid people in the economy have it better or worse than 50 years ago. I don't know the full answer to that question, but I do know that in 1968 about 5% of American households didn't have full indoor plumbing.[2] Just based on that datum, I'd much rather trade places with a very poor American in 2020 than 1968. [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm [2] https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2004/data/papers/SS04_Panel1_Paper17.pdf https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2004/data/papers/SS0...
- nroets 6y ago
  When I was in the US, I saw someone offering free phones to the unemployed (Obama phone). Food stamps being used. FEMA given new houses to people left homeless by hurricane Michael. I even met people whose diet consisted mainly of expired food. They had to fish it out of dumpsters, which wasn't nice. But they had free food!
refurb 6y ago
That makes sense, but why would productivity gains be equally applied across all wage levels? You'd naturally expect it to be unequal based on the productivity gains in specific job functions.

ruined 6y ago

As noted in your first link, average wage is misleading because the high end is incomprehensibly large (and is where most growth has taken place) and that skews the result. >The wage distribution is right-skewed; the majority of people earn less than the average wage. For an alternative measure, the median household income uses median instead of average.

ochoseis 6y ago
Agreed, a comparison of the median is better. Although, it’d be nice if the mean and median weren’t too far apart.
bhupy 6y ago
Yup, you're right. The real median personal income in the US, today is $35,977 -> https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N Unfortunately I'm having a hard time finding the median number of annual hours worked. But using the average hours worked, that puts the median worker at $20/hr. Obviously not perfect unless we can get the median hours worked. Also, like other commenters have said, I don't think anyone has ever claimed that the bulk of productivity gains will go equally to the minimum wage as the median wage, since the latter is usually pretty low leverage work in general.
- sixstrings 6y ago
  Is that net or gross? And assuming 30 days of vacation at 7,5 hours each, are those 225 hours part of the equation? Interesting to see how those numbers aren’t as drastically different from my country as I’d assumed.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    Someone making $35k isn't getting 30 days of vacation in the US. Maybe 10 days of combined sick days and vacation.
- OscarCunningham 6y ago
  > Obviously not perfect unless we can get the median hours worked. Even then, the median annual wage divided by the median annual number of hours worked won't necessarily be equal to the median hourly wage.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

"Average" anything in populations with large ranges is a terrible, terrible measure. As the joke goes, Bill Gates walks into a bar, and on average everyone in the bar is a millionaire. Median is the appropriate statistic for such cases.

bleepblorp 6y ago
Along these lines, here's a graph from the Federal Reserve's data service which plots median household income in contrast to GDP per household over time. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=bOfK https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=bOfK Note the increasing spread between GDP/household and median income. That's the US's entire socioeconomic problem--from rising consumer debt levels, rising deaths of despair, and the rise of reactionary politics--shown in one chart. The median person is falling behind.
dcolkitt 6y ago
Yeah, I actually agree. But the article is directly citing productivity, which by definition is the average economic output per hour worked. It's fine if you want to focus on median wages, but at the same time you need to compare against the median worker's economic output- not aggregate productivity. Otherwise you're just comparing apples to oranges.

downrightmike 6y ago

A good chuck of that average is all the workers that are structurally unemployed and will only accelerate https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-big-structural-unemployment/ https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-big-structural-...