14 ms·

The Life in the Simpsons Is No Longer Attainable

• stronglikedan 6y ago
  Bullshit. I know plenty of people who raise families in single family homes while being the sole breadwinner doing a trade. They just don't live beyond their means, and didn't incur a large amount of debt, student or otherwise. They're just hard working, responsible people, and they're some of the happiest folks I know. Most notably, they hate playing the "victim".
  • balls187 6y ago
    I can counter your anecdotal evidence with my own: I also know families that are hard working, responsible, still still cannot afford to make ends meet. Likewise, I know families who are none of those things, and have never known a real struggle. Implying that not being able to achieve the American Dream is result of not working hard, and/or living beyond your means is a gross oversimplification and frankly ignorant. This simulation illustrates that when you have low income how hard it is to make ends meet. http://makethemonth.ca/ http://makethemonth.ca/
    • stronglikedan 6y ago
      I'm just arguing that it's attainable, contrary to what the article says. It is in most cases, if you're hard working and responsible. > Implying that not being able to achieve the American Dream is result of not working hard, and/or living beyond your means is a gross oversimplification and frankly ignorant. Not at all, there are always a few outliers, because, besides the occasional run of just bad luck, a lot of people who appear to be responsible really aren't.
      • balls187 6y ago
        What you refer to as "bad luck" is really a system that (perhaps inadvertently) overly penalizes people with limited income. There are a lot of incidental costs associated in life that those of us with savings, and or good incomes can absorb. For those without savings and/or limited income, it becomes a game of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
        • scruple 6y ago
          > For those without savings and/or limited income, it becomes a game of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Yep. And in many of these situations Peter is future you and Paul is current you.
      • standardUser 6y ago
        Interesting how you keep emphasizing the word responsible, as if saying that word loudly enough is sufficient to make up for structural racism and sexism, a legacy of racially skewed criminal records, uneven economic growth in different towns/regions and unpredictable, life-altering medical debt (to name a few concerns).
        • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
          Those all can matter. But responsible vs irresponsible also matters. Given the same external circumstances, responsible behavior should lead to better outcomes on average. I explicitly deny that we are completely at the mercy of external forces. Our choices have effects that matter.
          • standardUser 6y ago
            Being black, female, gay, etc are not usually considered choices, but are variously correlated with lower pay, higher unemployment, increased interactions with law enforcement, disproportionately high penalties from the justice system, worse medical outcomes and so on. Then there's the luck issue. If you get in a car accident in the wrong place with poor insurance, that helicopter ride and subsequent treatment can completely decimate the finances of a middle or lower income household for a generation. But yeah, if you're a white straight man and you're able to dodge any crippling medical bills, it doesn't take much more than responsibility to sustain a decent life.
            • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
              OK, since you seem to have totally ignored my point, let me try again. If you're black, female, gay, etc, you may well have lower pay, higher unemployment, increased interaction with law enforcement, etc. That's all true, and is something that we as a society should work on changing. But within that flawed social environment, black female gay people who decide, say, to use their spare time to try to pick up new skills will probably have better outcomes on average than those in the exact same circumstances who decide to lose themselves in alcohol. The environment is flawed. Within that flawed environment, individual choices still matter.
      • bitwize 6y ago
        It's not "bad luck". It's capitalism. And responsibility costs money. It's much harder to be responsible when you're poor. The immediate threat of poverty alters your decision making process, as does the malnutrition from only being able to afford garbage food. And that's assuming a fair and equitable system, without structural racism or other forms of ingrained discrimination. Let's quit pretending this is normal or acceptable, or that some free market solution will come along. The solution is wealth redistribution.
      • griffinkelly 6y ago
        I'm in the national guard, and have numerous friends who joined the military right out of high school and been able to make a great living. Serve 20+ and get a pension, healthcare, and you're set--something few jobs in the private sector even offer. Sure you wont be making millions of bucks, but you have a nice steady income.
        • balls187 6y ago
          1) thanks for your service. 2) It's not a coincidence that military targets enlistments from low income areas. It wasn't until my dad made E4 that he was able to quit his second job working at a gas station. Sometimes, those soldiers weren't able to escape their upbringing. I'd hear stories of my dad's GIs who would spend their money on alcohol and drugs, and eventually got chaptered out.
        • lotsofpulp 6y ago
          Yes, it’s known that if you’re low income, you should look for government employment offering defined benefit pensions, otherwise there’s no way you will earn enough to save enough for your older years.
      • greedo 6y ago
        I had a great IT career going up until 2005 when I had cancer. My company promised to keep me on until I was healthy, but fired me Christmas week. I was unemployed (unemployable actually do to the cancer) until mid 2006. I had over 60K in medical debt, plus being unemployed wiped out my emergency fund. Before this, I was responsible with my money, had life insurance, retirement fund, lived within my means. Yet one out of control cell grew into a "run of just bad luck." I'm not alone.
        • MrDresden 6y ago
          I am sorry to hear about what you went through, and hope life has been kinder to you since. These kinds of stories are why I, as a north European, have a hard time imagining living in the US. Sure a SE job will pay much more net in the US, but you have litte to no social net that dampens your fall when it comes (as it does for us all). My partner was diagnosed with cancer little over a year ago. She had all (100%) of her medical bills taken care of by the state. She took 6 months off work on full pay, as she and all living here have a legal right to do. Her employer added 3 months of fully paid medical leave on top of that. She can not be fired due to a medical issue arrising. She has now finished her treatment, full remission and is back at work.
          • greedo 6y ago
            Glad to hear your partner is doing well. Cancer sucks. Life has been kind to me since I was ill, partially because IT is a good field to be in, and mostly because my family was upper-middle class and able to help financially. I can't imagine how I'd be if I didn't have the help from my parents, or had a job that was more physical. I guess I would have had to declare bankruptcy, with all the costs that entails.
    • Simon_says 6y ago
      stronglikedan said doing a trade, not completely unskilled labor. The makethemonth website might not teach the lesson you want it to.
      • balls187 6y ago
        That's burying the lede--which is the families lived the middle class lifestyle because they were hardworking, and responsible. One point I want to emphasize "responsible" in his example really just means not making a single mistake, ever.
    • phaemon 6y ago
      That's a terrible simulator. Something bad happens every day, the sums are crazy (75 for a cellphone bill?), basically it's too much. I've been poor. You have good as well as bad days. I remember the day I won £75 with £1 on a fruit machine. I also remember the days I'd put £10 in and get nothing. I remember the unexpected bill but they weren't every day, they would be every 6 months so you hadn't accounted for them. It would be more realistic if it allowed those little moments of triumph, only to snatch it away later.
  • marklubi 6y ago
    I don't know why you're being downvoted, other than the fact that others can't comprehend what you said. There are a lot of people out there that don't feel the need to spend money to be happy.
    • necheffa 6y ago
      Probably the thinly veiles "all it takes is a little hard work and grit, don't know why all these peasants complain about being poor" attitude.
      • fullshark 6y ago
        aka it refutes the political point this piece is making that people want to agree with.
        • multjoy 6y ago
          An unsourced anecdote refutes nothing.
        • necheffa 6y ago
          It really doesn't. Proof by contradiction only goes so far on this topic. Particularly when you lean on anecdotes from your personal bubble. If we want to play that game, I can refute the refutal with my own anecdote. I grew up very poor but managed to get to a place several rungs up the socio-economic ladder higher than where I was as a kid. Sure, I worked hard and gritted my way through things like having to skip meals. But a good number of things had to line up just right for me to get where I am today. It was just as much about me seizing opportunities as it was just being lucky enough to have a shot at them in the first place. It is a lot easier to make opportunities for yourself when you aren't worried about where your next meal is coming from or when you can afford leisure activities that build out your network. When you start off at the bottom, there is no magic Disney formula you follow to reach success. It is entirely possible to do everything right and still end up stuck in destitution.
    • mikestew 6y ago
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Can you list the retirement savings date for these plenty of “responsible” people? Unless they were government employees with ridiculous gold plated defined benefit pensions, I don’t see how the math works for saving sufficient money while earning median plus or minus a standard deviation wages for an individual. Also, please list if they had jobs with medical insurance pre ACA, and whether or not they have experienced any healthcare events in their family.
  • CarelessExpert 6y ago
    > I know plenty of people And I know plenty of statistical evidence that says you're wrong. Just looking at wage stagnation and inflation numbers is enough to demonstrate there's a real problem being experienced by people every single day. But, hey, I'm sure your anecdotes are every bit as compelling...
    • stronglikedan 6y ago
      The statistical "evidence" indicates that a lot of people would rather play "victim", by expecting someone other than them to magically correct their course.
      • greedo 6y ago
        What evidence? The studies that have shown the failure of trickledown economics to do anything other than line the pockets of the .01%? George Carlin had it right when he said the game was rigged.
    • throwaway98797 6y ago
      Seems unfortunate that we focus so much effort on tracking income statistics vs well being ones. It’s clear that money is poorly correlated with a satisfied life. I wish there was a way to track that with minimal bias. Income is a red herring above certain thresholds.
• PaulHoule 6y ago
  I think a lot of white collar folks don't know any blue collar folks, thus they imagine they don't exist or "can't make it" It's not that inequality is a problem, but if you are willing to go 50 miles from the coasts you will find people in the trades who do OK, some with help from a union, some not. Some of them get paid pretty well but what they all have in common is that they didn't start their career with $200,000 in college debt. So many things make it invisible, however, including: * a heavy involvement of illegal aliens in "services", the "trades" and "agriculture" in places like California. These people work hard at being "invisible" because if they become visible they get deported; a result of it is that people don't have a realistic image of this work and in the people that do it * the media is demographically unrepresentative of the country as a whole: if you read the whole New York Times (particular the Sunday metro) it seems almost as provincial as a paper from small town South Dakota. There is a lot of content that plays to the fears and anxieties of over-represented groups in the New York City suburbs. * for HN in particular: every kind of engineering other than "software engineering" requires occupational licensing and has professional associations that both stick up for workers and set a bar for training and quality. As a result if you work in a place like a library or a hospital you'll never quite be accepted or taken seriously by the licensed occupation folks who run the organization. To people in our field, the idea of having a group that looks out for our interests seems unthinkable, which is great news for all the other people who are organized and have one less pressure group to fight against. Thus the idea that you could have a union job is just as invisible as having an ag job.
  • lisper 6y ago
    Good observations overall, but I think you're being unfair to the New York Times. It is, after all, one of the local newspapers for New York City, so it's not at all surprising that its content caters to the people who live there. The NYT != The Media.
    • jasonpbecker 6y ago
      Especially since he references the Metro section... which is exactly that.
    • 6y ago
• ashleyn 6y ago
  Or could it be that it was never realistic in the first place? I remember a show of the same contemporary, Roseanne, lauded for its actually-authentic depiction of working class life and precarity. Meanwhile it always struck me as absurd that someone like Homer Simpson or Al Bundy would have a house approaching a McMansion. The Simpsons themselves even make fun of this in the Frank Grimes episode.
  • ramphastidae 6y ago
    Here is more about Frank Grimes for those interested https://www.adaptabilitypractice.com.au/blog/the-simpsons-frank-grimes-the-just-world-hypothesis-and-obsessive-personality-psychology-in-tv-and-movies/ https://www.adaptabilitypractice.com.au/blog/the-simpsons-fr...
  • klmadfejno 6y ago
    The simpson house is ~2,000 sq ft, 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom. Generally in poor condition, with lead paint. Homer defaults on this house in 2009, when it is repurchased for $100,001. Doesn't sound unrealistic to me for a guy making ~$35k presuming he got it even cheaper back in the day.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • MBCook 6y ago
      As I remember Grandpa helped Homer and Marge buy the house when they were first starting out.
    • 93po 6y ago
      The unrealistic part is that the house would only cost $100k. Also homer makes closer to $25k
      • runako 6y ago
        https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/The-McKenzie-Build-On-Your-Land_Mid-Willamette-Valley_172-Melton-Rd_Creswell_OR_97426_P417000390761 https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/The-McKenz... - it's not exactly in Springfield + it's new construction - it's just under 2000sf + at $165k it's probably a lower payment than a mortgage on $100k in the 90s
• seibelj 6y ago
  This was commented on within The Simpsons itself. Frank Grimes explains starting at 1:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA1RgpYS2IQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA1RgpYS2IQ
  • killion 6y ago
    When I read the article I was surprised that Frank Grimes wasn’t mentioned at all. He appeared in 1997 so after just 8 seasons the premise had collapsed.
• jl6 6y ago
  > The median house costs 2.4 times what it did in the mid-’90s. Health-care expenses for one person are three times what they were 25 years ago. What is the macro explanation for this? Is health and housing in any way 2-3x better now than it was then?
  • Veen 6y ago
    Inflation. The average wage is also a little over twice what it was in the mid-90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_Indexed_Monthly_Earnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_Indexed_Monthly_Earnin...
    • Miner49er 6y ago
      I believe the article is using inflation adjusted vaules.
      • skeeter2020 6y ago
        Why do you believe that?
        • Miner49er 6y ago
          Well I'm wrong. It's not for the housing prices, but it's still comparing to an inflation adjusted salary. The point is that if you make the same as Homer did (inflation adjusted) you have far spending power than he did.
    • darksaints 6y ago
      Those things have significantly outpaced inflation, and inflation is an entirely fallible metric in and of itself: you can literally game it in one extreme or another based entirely on the things that you choose to index, how you account for them changing over time, and how heavily you weight things within the index. Furthermore, with things like housing, we get major distortions of real world meaning that are completely obscured by macro trends. For example, the average housing price across the country has outpaced inflation metrics by a little, but if you narrow it to places of economic opportunity, it has drastically outpaced inflation. Any new growth in economic opportunity has been accompanied by even more severe growth in housing costs. The end result is that average housing prices appear flat-ish relative to income, but it has stayed that way due to massive emigration of economically disadvantaged people away from areas of economic opportunity. What has really happened is that America fell in love with dysfunctional markets. Free market prices, but with significant regulatory capture. We've got cartels on housing via hyper-localized land use regulation that decreases the relative supply of housing.
• johnchristopher 6y ago
  > Marge is still a stay-at-home parent, taking point on raising Bart, Lisa, and Maggie and maintaining the family’s suburban home. But their life no longer resembles reality for many American middle-class families. I believe it's because those shows are still made for the same people, those who were kids in the early 90's. So show makers don't adapt them to the modern world, they let their viewers enjoy snapshots of their past, it's an anchor in their modern world. For context: When I was a kid, I lived in a western european country where the Simpsons were clearly a kid /teen thing.
  • balls187 6y ago
    The Simpsons wasn't a kids show. Originally aired as part of the Tracey Ulman Show, then eventually a prime-time shot. As a 1st generation American immigrant kid in the 90's, both my parents had to work.
    • Ancapistani 6y ago
      Marketed to kids or not, we watched it.
      • selimthegrim 6y ago
        My parents forbade me from watching it because Bart was disrespectful to his parents (then maybe don't get me a Bart Simpson doll for my third birthday?). Then South Park came out and they had a new windmill to tilt at.
        • balls187 6y ago
          Same in our house for several seasons. Then watching it became a family event. Did your parents have a pov regarding Mortal Kombat? My dad recorded the Senate debate on Video Game violence off CSPAN, and made me watch it.
          • selimthegrim 6y ago
• m23khan 6y ago
  1990s was a long time ago - economics and demographics around the World have changed a lot since then (in fact, The Simpsons lifestyle - at least in earlier seasons - seems to be more reminiscent of 1980s era). Things like inflation and changing consumer trends have led to what we see now -- don't know about small towns but at least in major North American Cities. What we have now is either people staying single longer and eventually they end up with Simpsons' style living standard (while staying Single) or they eventually achieve it via DINK lifestyle. I think a huge part that has played into making this transformation is due to people's increased access to cheap loans (mortgage) and the idea that real-estate is the ultimate ROI game-in-the-town and the new pension fund. What we see now (compared to say 1980s): almost no major corps offering pension, inflation to the point where both Husband and Wife need to work in order to just afford a property and perhaps a kid, creeping fees/charges (cellphones, internet, netflix, disney+, etc.). This all leads to people, in my opinion, to look for safety net in order to fend themselves in old age: buy house -- no, make it 2 or 3 houses so you can live off their rent income, delay (or forget about) having kid(s) to achieve that financial goals. Automation and globalization has also caused some pain points: IT jobs are much more competitive than say even 10 years ago and there is always threat of being left out in the cold due to outsourcing. See, funny thing is, here in Canada, I would always see hardworking immigrant families where the Husband and the Wife would be working in multiple low-income jobs and even their teenage kids would be picking up retail/factory job while studying to balance their family's financial books. To me, it always seemed excessive or even mindboggling - but now, it makes perfect sense...it is the very future for the masses in North America. And for folks in developing World: Don't worry, your turn will come to experience all this (if you haven't yet) soon enough in your lifetime. I guarantee it.
  • md_ 6y ago
    > What we see now (compared to say 1980s): almost no major corps offering pension, inflation to the point where both Husband and Wife need to work in order to just afford a property and perhaps a kid, creeping fees/charges (cellphones, internet, netflix, disney+, etc.). For the US (and this generally holds true in other western countries to varying degrees), the rise of female workforce participation was (as you imply) a counterbalance to stagnating real wage growth. But this isn't due to inflation. It's due to changes in income distribution. While it's true that labor productivity growth has slowed over the last few decades, GDP per capita has continued to grow (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-per-capita https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...). What's changed is that those gains have been overwhelmingly distributed to the rich. The middle and lower classes have compensated for this by, as you note, increasing workforce participation, increasing reliance on consumer debt, and increasing personal bankruptcy (https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/07/01/Garrett.pdf https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/revie...).
• ur-whale 6y ago
  https://archive.is/smlsX https://archive.is/smlsX
• zests 6y ago
  Rising educational standards mean that for a lot of jobs a high school degree is not good enough anymore. An increase in the work force, from one family earner to two, is a sign of progress. Its also a sign that both parents might have to work to achieve the lifestyle one parent could achieve previously. Its easy to look at one side of the coin and ignore the other. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
  • xienze 6y ago
    > Rising educational standards mean that for a lot of jobs a high school degree is not good enough anymore. I’d argue it’s more about _lowered_ educational standards. A high school education ain’t what it used to be and colleges are trying their damnedest to get every single person they can through the doors (and keep the cash flowing). Pretty soon a bachelor’s degree is going to be worthless as well.
• ur-whale 6y ago
  >Dani Alexis Ryskamp is a freelance writer.
• CryptoPunk 6y ago
  One of the biggest problem facing the US today is that the regions that offer the most economic opportunity have moved to increase restrictions on building new housing the most: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/Housing_Development_Toolkit%20f.2.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images... Contrast that with Chongqing, China, where construction has kept rent to $75 a month: https://web.archive.org/web/20200713034719/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/asia/chongqing-china-employment-ford-youth.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200713034719/https://www.nytim... Or Houston, Texas, where housing costs less, adjusted for inflation, than it did in 1980: https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-way-to-affordable-housing/ https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-...
  • 93po 6y ago
    Having lived in Houston in recent years, there is absolutely no way the median single family house price is $141k. Having personally done house shopping in Houston, the absolute cheapest houses available were about $140k and you had to drive 30-45 minutes out of downtown to get there. The source for the $141k figure is a linked PDF that is no longer available. Additionally, Houston is huge in terms of landmass. Look at housing prices for the vast majority of the people who actually commute to the Houston city center and it'd be massively higher. A Simpsons style house and yard that's "in the loop" could easily be a million dollars in Houston. I know people with smaller houses and smaller yards whose homes are nearly a million.
    • o-__-o 6y ago
      https://pasteboard.co/JHcrnnA.png https://pasteboard.co/JHcrnnA.png Just because you don’t like the neighborhood or schools doesn’t mean they don’t exist (image shows homes for under $150k in Houston, assume the ones inside the loop are condos)
• acwan93 6y ago
  Vox did a video on this several years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D420SOmL6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D420SOmL6U I recently did a rewatch of older Simpsons episodes lately and aside from the 90s references a lot of the economic conditions seems incredibly outdated. Much like watching Friends or even more "recent" shows like How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) where the characters undergo their lives in a big expensive city but not work constantly. It's hard to suspend belief on those shows given the shenanigans they do. How on earth did they live in that apartment (Friends/HIMYM), or live in such a large single family home on one income? The shows end up having to address their own disbelief with rent control (Friends) or the Frank Grimes episode (The Simpsons).
  • joemazerino 6y ago
    It is fiction and should be interpreted as such. After all the OP topic is about diverging lines between reality and the Simpsons.
  • mikestew 6y ago
    It's hard to suspend belief on those shows given the shenanigans they do. Unlike prior shows like, say, The Brady Bunch, which were almost a reality show. I mean, you grew up with a live-in maid, right? It's TV; if it were realistic, no one would watch it, including the "reality" shows.
    • jhbadger 6y ago
      The Brady Bunch justified it though. Mike Brady wasn't working class, but a wealthy successful architect, so it wasn't that surprising that the family could afford those things.
• claydavisss 6y ago
  And yet very few readers here are willing to: - live outside a cool metro - consider a trade that doesn't require/imply college - giving up all manner of consumer toys and consumption etc etc I just watched a Youtube video by a young hip millennial who bragged about financing $50k of a $57k Tesla. I KNOW YOU You own the newest iPhone. You are considering getting an M1 Mac. You have an $800 ArcTeryx ski shell. You have a craft bourbon collection. You only cook at home once a week. You go on expensive vacations three times a year. You only wear organic cotton from Patagonia. You have an MBA. You own Black Crows skis. You have a carbon fiber Specialized road bike. You have subscriptions to four streaming services. You belong to a service that custom roasts coffee to your particular tastes. But you can't afford a house.
• bluedino 6y ago
  Nuclear plant operators clear $100k/year, easily. Homer drives an older car in rough shape. They have a plain house in a suburb of Springfield. Is the lack of new nuclear plants preventing this from being attainable?
  • MBCook 6y ago
    As the article points out we know Homer’s salary. Also he doesn’t have a degree and burns is a tightwad. There is no reason to think he’s making $100k.
  • nrmitchi 6y ago
    I think you're focusing too much on "nuclear operator" here. As mentioned in the article, Homer worked a variety of different jobs throughout the season. In my opinion, it's not realistic for a high-school graduate with no additional training to be a nuclear operator. I believe it was part of the "ridiculous" that went towards making the show entertaining, and a job that most people would not have in sight into. My point is that a lack of a specific type of job is not the root cause of the situation the author is describing.
    • rhino369 6y ago
      Homer's job is a joke about nuclear safety being really bad.
• sokoloff 6y ago
  > Inflation and stagnant wages have led to a rise in two-income households I often see it phrased this way, but I always wonder how much of the effect is actually "A rise in two-income households has led to inflation and stagnant wages"? Certainly, there's a positive feedback mechanism at play, but it always seems to be presented as "A causes B" rather than "A and B reinforce each other".
  • downrightmike 6y ago
    Well, we often see the huge start of it in the 70's when the USA was able to get products out of China. Thanks to nixon, well paying middle class jobs evaporated, replaced with worse service jobs, or nothing at all. Then deregulation in the 80's allow Bain and the like to load up companies with debt and take that money as fees. Effectively destroying these American institutions. Sun Beam used to make things in the US. Toys R Us used to be a stable business. We can't have nice things because the basis for them has been wiped out. There is also the two income trap. So people over consume to fill a gap or cope with stress from having to work so much.
    • zippy5 6y ago
      The other side is that the peak of American prosperity occurred post WWII where a majority of the developed world (any country that had experienced an industrial revolution), was blown to shreds. This gave the US roughly a temporary monopoly on manufacturing and exports. It’s hard to see a future where the dominance of American prosperity happens again unless that scenario repeats itself. Aka WWIII with the US coming out unscathed and the rest of the world destroyed. No doubt your point of mismanagement and bad actors is valid but it’s important to recognize that much of the glory days of the American middle class corresponded to the height of many others misfortune.
      • downrightmike 6y ago
        It is possible, look at asia, they don't have land lines in many countries, they started around 3G, and now are pushing that further with 5G. The last economy to update will be the most advanced. So if the US can learn from China and Europe, it is possible that they could become a greater manufacturing power.
• bluedino 6y ago
  How is Bob from Bob's Burgers doing right now? Hopefully his state hasn't shut down dine-in restaurants.
• nathanvanfleet 6y ago
  Both my parents were licensed auto mechanics and worked to repair appliances and eventually installed garage door openers. They also bought a 2 bedroom house (fixer upper) in their mid twenties, raised three kids and paid it off in a timeline that wasn't todays 30 year mortgages. It's kind of depressing how un-attainable all those things are. I managed to attain a small percentage of this after getting a college degree and working in STEM. It's kind of ridiculous.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• mdnahas 6y ago
  I'm a computer scientists who went back for an econ degree. The answer is two parts: salary has not increased and we get less for our money. The salary stagnation is pretty well known, but I've been looking into the other side: We Americans currently spend $4,000 more per person per year than other countries for healthcare, and we live 4 years shorter than them. For a family of 5, like the Simpsons, that's $20,000 per year. https://medium.com/numbers-that-matter/our-healthcare-system-costs-4-000-and-4-years-of-life-per-person-58417bbe6e68 https://medium.com/numbers-that-matter/our-healthcare-system... Because of industry consolidation, over the last 20 years, we Americans are paying an extra $2,000 per person per year for higher priced goods. And losing out on $800 per person per year on goods we don't buy because consolidation raised the price beyond what we'd pay. For a family of 5 like the Simpsons, that's worth $14,000 per year. https://medium.com/numbers-that-matter/monopoly-oligopoly-cost-2-800-per-american-per-year-446c8d48a35d https://medium.com/numbers-that-matter/monopoly-oligopoly-co... Another major factor is housing. More people live in cities, but housing hasn't been created at the same pace. It drives up rents and housing prices. Some economists have measured the effect of housing in just San Francisco and New York and said it is worth _nationally_ on the order of $1,200 per person per year. That's just f*ed up. So, even as wages have stagnated, that's not the whole story. Lower class people are actually worse off.
  • shalmanese 6y ago
    This is the most important part. So much of the political conversation is centered around whether we should be paying the bottom rung of society $7.25 an hour or $15 an hour. Almost none of the discussion is about why $7.25 an hour in the US can buy so much less than other countries. Why is it that $7.25 an hour would be a princely sum in Thailand or Costa Rica or the Czech Republic but is starvation wages in Tulsa or Jacksonville or Duluth? Most people think they know the answer to this question but it's a facile half truth that's doesn't stand up to much empirical scrutiny. Digging into the real cause is something that hasn't received enough economic attention because it gores the sacred bulls of both the left and the right.
• sokoloff 6y ago
  > But after taking into account all of my expenses, my adjusted gross income was only $19. That's not what adjusted gross income means. How much would anyone like to bet that the author's Form 1040 line 8b or Form 1040-NR line 35 shows an adjusted gross income figure substantially higher than $19?
• apta 6y ago
  The modern economy is debt based by design (i.e. backed by interest and usurious transactions). This by definition creates a separation in the socio economic hierarchy. It's for a reason that usury/interest is banned in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism for example. It's a parasitic practice that makes the economy fundamentally unstable. This includes dangerous practices such as selling debt for debt (which triggered the 2008 crisis), and things like stock shorting (which, interestingly enough was also banned during the crisis, at least for some critical company stocks). Get rid of these dangerous, immoral, and parasitic practices, and we'll be on a strong path to improve things.
• 11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
  Marge Simpson did not have an income. Is supporting a family of 5 on a $25,000 income possible in the US? Let's at least adjust for inflation since 1995, and Homer's wages would amount to $42,000. Since they all had their own bedrooms, they'd need a 4 bedroom home (assume Maggie still sleeps with Marge & Homer). The author is in Michigan. Let's choose Flint to simulate having a Nuke in the back yard. A 4 bedroom home in Flint (not in the 'lead zone', Marge would never allow it) is minimum $200,000. Payments on a mortgage at 3% are about $800/mo. Monthly Expenses: $800 Mortgage $300 property tax $700 food for 5 $150 clothes (the kids are growing, need shoes annually, need diapers for Maggie...) $300 Auto expenses (used car, maintenance, insurance, gas) $2,250/month so far. That covers the basics and leaves $16,000! But what about health insurance? (gulp) What are the odds that Homer's $20/hr. job includes fully paid health insurance for his family of 5? Let's give a little benefit and say at least it covers Homer as the employee (a stretch, yes?). His employer would require him to pay for his 3 kids and wife. Grampa is on Medicare/Medicaid + social security. So he's on his own... To calibrate for the rest of the family... Hmm... Healthcare.gov says that marketplace plans are not available in Homer's county. And, according to eHealth.com, Homer doesn't qualify for 'savings'. So, it's off to Healthcare.gov, which requires an account, so I'll stop there. From recent personal experience, the most basic plans run $1,500/month and have deductibles that would bankrupt Homer. Lower deductibles would put the premiums out of reach. I think he is out of cash at this point.
  • flubert 6y ago
    I've been having a lot of fun on Zillow today. How about TWO houses on 5.5 acres? $90,000 https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/300-Highland-Rd-Sturgis-KY-42459/115474824_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/300-Highland-Rd-Sturgis-K...? $89,900 for a five bedroom https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2901-Mcclellan-Blvd-Anniston-AL-36201/109371387_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2901-Mcclellan-Blvd-Annis... $99,900 for a four bedroom https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/623-Ben-Hur-Ave-Knoxville-TN-37915/41643411_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/623-Ben-Hur-Ave-Knoxville...
  • rufus_foreman 6y ago
    >> And, according to eHealth.com, Homer doesn't qualify for 'savings'. He doesn't make enough, 42K/year is below 138% of the poverty line for a family of five (barely). So it looks like instead they would be eligible for Healthy Michigan which is part of expanded Medicaid. That income limit is based on MAGI (how appropriate!) so if they were slightly over, they could work around it. And even if they were over the limit, the limits for CHIP are higher so they could make more and still have coverage for the kids. Looks like he would be eligible even with insurance from work, that coverage would be primary. Total cost of premium/co-pays limited to 5% of income. This was enacted around 2013 so people with that income today would be way better off than a similar family in the 1990s as far as health care goes. The problem isn't a 42K income in Flint, the problem is there aren't enough jobs in Flint that pay $20 an hour, the median household income is around $29K.
• pmiller2 6y ago
  Previous discussion from earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25570438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25570438
• 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  The numbers in here are a bit scattered and tell a bizarre story because some are inflation adjusted and some aren't. The one that set this rant off was the super misleading housing numbers. From 1996 to 2019 (the article uses a mix of 2019 and 2020 figures), inflation boosts prices 1.63x. Homer's $25k 1996 income would be $40.75k in 2019 ($41.5 today). That puts them at the 30th percentile of household income and him the 36th percentile of individual income today [0]. For the house affordability the Q3 2019 vs Q3 1996 median house price increased 2.27x [3]. After adjusting for 1.63x inflation, it's 1.4x more expensive. But mortgages are way cheaper today. The 1996 December average mortgage interest rates was around 7.7% [1]. Today's 30 year fixed rate mortgage is around 2.9% [2]. Homer's monthly mortgage payments on the same mortgage today would would be 58% of what they were then. Adjusting for the 1.4x real house price increase, a Homer buying today would have monthly payments of 82% what he would in 96. That's 18% lower! (This is what set off my rant, seeing the '2.4x higher housing costs!' in the article) Healthcare costs are about 3x higher, as the article says, so about 1.8x after inflation adjustment. Median tuition for a four year college is 2.6x more expensive in 2017-2018 (the last year in their source) and 1.64x more expensive after inflation adjustment, so who knows where their 1.8x number came from. All together, the Simpsons' family's biggest expense would probably be their mortgage, which would be cheaper today. Not to say anything about expecting TV lifestyles to be affordable. Cue the Friends and How I Met Your Mother giant apartment jokes. There's a story to be told about increasingly inaccessible lifestyles, but this article isn't it. [0] https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/ [1] http://mortgage-x.com/general/national_monthly_average.asp?y=1996 http://mortgage-x.com/general/national_monthly_average.asp?y... [2] https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-rates https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-rates [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
• BadMrFrosty333 6y ago
  I work as an engineer without a degree making $65,000/yr in rural Michigan for a Fortune 500 company. My wife is a stay-at-home mom with no income. She's about to have our 7th kid any day now. Living with us is her teenaged sister and elderly grandmother. We also have 2 cows, 40 chickens, 15 ducks, a goose, a guineacock and 2 dogs. I do have about $60k in student debt for my 3 years of engineering school. Don't let some PhD doing studies in being "neuroqueer" tell you what's not possible. Especially when she probably hasn't set foot outside her metropolitan bubble.