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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 stagna

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.

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.