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Median income in 1990 was $50,500. Adjusting for inflation using CPI, that's $102,700 in 2020 money, but median income for 2020 was actually $67,500. Since 2020

by hajile 4y ago

Median income in 1990 was $50,500. Adjusting for inflation using CPI, that's $102,700 in 2020 money, but median income for 2020 was actually $67,500. Since 2020, this has been kicked into overdrive. I believe wholesale goods inflation is somewhere near 30% since the pandemic began (inflation numbers look lower because services -- aka wages -- don't increase at the same amount). The only people immune to inflation are the rich who have hard assets that aren't affected by inflation. If people really understood how badly they are getting screwed by inflation, there would be riots.

twoodfin 4y ago
Median income in 1990 was $50,500. That's already in CPI-adjusted dollars. Nominal median household income in 1990 was $30k: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA646N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA646N
- zht 4y ago
  im always curious about people (not you, the person you are replying to) who pop out metrics like these and mis-interpret them (not maliciously I'm assuming). I always wonder how many people they've repeated those facts to (most of whom won't fact check or think twice about it) and how many of THOSE people repeated them to other people THEY know.
  - twoodfin 4y ago
    I'm less interested in the people since it's pretty obvious why these "factoids" are so appealing to believe & spread. I find it more fun to catalog the more common ones and track their origins. Two of my favorites: - "Medical debt is the #1 cause of bankruptcies." This goes back to a handful of papers by, among others, now-Senator Elizabeth Warren and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health. There was a lot of back-and-forth at the time, but I'll sum up the objection to the thrust of the papers and the factoid: People who go into bankruptcy tend to have all kinds of debt, and the authors made no rigorous attempt to establish the specific "but-for" causality of medical debt. - "40% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck." This comes, AFAICT, from the annual Federal Reserve "SHED" survey on household economic well-being. There's lots of good data in these, but downers somehow latched onto the "How would you handle an unexpected $400 expense?" question and interpreted any response other than paying it off in cash or equivalent as "living paycheck-to-paycheck". FWIW, the "pay it off" response has become more popular every year of the survey's existence, rising from 50% in 2013 to 68% in 2021[1]. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2021-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202205.pdf https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2021-repor...

by hajile 4y ago

twoodfin 4y ago

Median income in 1990 was $50,500. That's already in CPI-adjusted dollars. Nominal median household income in 1990 was $30k: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA646N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA646N

zht 4y ago
im always curious about people (not you, the person you are replying to) who pop out metrics like these and mis-interpret them (not maliciously I'm assuming). I always wonder how many people they've repeated those facts to (most of whom won't fact check or think twice about it) and how many of THOSE people repeated them to other people THEY know.
- twoodfin 4y ago
  I'm less interested in the people since it's pretty obvious why these "factoids" are so appealing to believe & spread. I find it more fun to catalog the more common ones and track their origins. Two of my favorites: - "Medical debt is the #1 cause of bankruptcies." This goes back to a handful of papers by, among others, now-Senator Elizabeth Warren and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health. There was a lot of back-and-forth at the time, but I'll sum up the objection to the thrust of the papers and the factoid: People who go into bankruptcy tend to have all kinds of debt, and the authors made no rigorous attempt to establish the specific "but-for" causality of medical debt. - "40% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck." This comes, AFAICT, from the annual Federal Reserve "SHED" survey on household economic well-being. There's lots of good data in these, but downers somehow latched onto the "How would you handle an unexpected $400 expense?" question and interpreted any response other than paying it off in cash or equivalent as "living paycheck-to-paycheck". FWIW, the "pay it off" response has become more popular every year of the survey's existence, rising from 50% in 2013 to 68% in 2021[1]. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2021-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202205.pdf https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2021-repor...