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Median household income in the US in 2022 is $78,000. The average American has adequate income and can't justify pirating movies, books, music, porn, etc. on th

Median household income in the US in 2022 is $78,000. The average American has adequate income and can't justify pirating movies, books, music, porn, etc. on the basis of poverty.

connorgutman 4y ago
That is a wildly skewed outlook. The per-capita income in America is $35,000 (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/SEX255221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/SEX255221). Household income, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, includes the gross cash income of all people ages 15 years or older occupying the same housing unit, regardless of how they are related, if at all. Meaning my household income is somewhere above $100K because I have 3 roommates. Typically, the lower your income the more roommates you have. Median household income is a useless figure for determining how well the average American is doing.
pessimizer 4y ago
> The US has the largest gap between its top earners and everyone else. The Netherlands actually surpasses the US for GDP per-capita of the bottom 99%, and the difference between Germany and the US narrows considerably. https://blogs.worldbank.org/psd/removing-oligarchs-from-per-capita-gdp https://blogs.worldbank.org/psd/removing-oligarchs-from-per-... I wonder what would happen if you removed the top 10%, other than that 99% of the people posting on HN wouldn't be counted.
- wang_li 4y ago
  A. The economy is not zero sum. Lebron James making lots of money doesn't take anything away from you. B. Median: the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. It's not an average, there are no outliers dragging the median up. It's just an ordered listing and then looking at the one in the middle and seeing how much they make per year. If you removed all the billionaires and their income from the chart it wouldn't change the median income at all because the position of the median would only move 350 places. If you took away the top ten percent the median position would shift to the left 5% and the median annual income decreases a few thousand dollars per year. But in no way is the typical American living in poverty and desperation. (Turns out that only 11% of the US live in poverty.)
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    How do you define poverty? The federal poverty line is a figure that where most people live would afford you a fine living commuting between your 2 jobs and your tent living as a hobo and the public library where you give yourself a sponge bath.
michaelmrose 4y ago
This context free numbers isn't illustrative or even useful. The world isn't populated by median Americans earning median salaries in a median cost of living area. Imagine 5 households in areas where the poverty line for their household size are 30k 50k and 70k 70k 70k We have could have learned from the sample that the majority live in areas where wages are higher but so are costs of living and the median value is 70k which seems like a lot of money until we figure out that rent alone costs most of this money and all parties are on food stamps. This also ignores just how far below that median value many of the bottom half actually are. The bottom half lest we forget is 169 million Americans many just getting by as their entire segment of the population shares about 10% of the total income and virtually none of its wealth. None of these facts about the actual distribution of wealth and income is captured by looking at a median income and making up a fiction about what an imaginary American can afford.
- wang_li 4y ago
  >None of these facts about the actual distribution of wealth and income is captured by looking at a median income and making up a fiction about what an imaginary American can afford. Funny you would end by writing of making up a fiction about what an imaginary American can afford when both this comment and your other one are imaginary realities. You say rent takes up most of some $70k, it doesn't. You say "all parties" at that income level are on food stamps, they're not, the percentage of Americans using food stamps varies by year but is 13-15%. You say 169 million Americans are below the median income, no, because we're talking about household income. And, you know, why would you put the 72 million children into this as they generally have $0 income and their expenses are paid by their parents. As well, I'm quite aware of what the distribution of income as I've looked it up in the past. The Congressional Budget Office does a regular report on the distribution of household income and taxes. In the last such report, 2018, the average pretax household income for the bottom quintile before taxes is $22k, after taxes and means tested transfers their income is $38k (yes, they do have a negative net tax rate.) Which is sufficient to live in most big cities in the US. These [0] people did an analysis of the cost of living in the largest 74 cities in the US. The most expensive among these cities was Irvine, CA with a monthly cost of living of $3062 and a median individual income of $55k. Americans don't have to fight rats for scraps of food from the trash. 0. https://www.move.org/lowest-cost-of-living-by-us-city/ https://www.move.org/lowest-cost-of-living-by-us-city/

Median household income in the US in 2022 is $78,000. The average American has adequate income and can't justify pirating movies, books, music, porn, etc. on the basis of poverty.

connorgutman 4y ago

That is a wildly skewed outlook. The per-capita income in America is $35,000 (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/SEX255221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/SEX255221). Household income, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, includes the gross cash income of all people ages 15 years or older occupying the same housing unit, regardless of how they are related, if at all. Meaning my household income is somewhere above $100K because I have 3 roommates. Typically, the lower your income the more roommates you have. Median household income is a useless figure for determining how well the average American is doing.

pessimizer 4y ago

> The US has the largest gap between its top earners and everyone else. The Netherlands actually surpasses the US for GDP per-capita of the bottom 99%, and the difference between Germany and the US narrows considerably. https://blogs.worldbank.org/psd/removing-oligarchs-from-per-capita-gdp https://blogs.worldbank.org/psd/removing-oligarchs-from-per-... I wonder what would happen if you removed the top 10%, other than that 99% of the people posting on HN wouldn't be counted.

wang_li 4y ago
A. The economy is not zero sum. Lebron James making lots of money doesn't take anything away from you. B. Median: the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. It's not an average, there are no outliers dragging the median up. It's just an ordered listing and then looking at the one in the middle and seeing how much they make per year. If you removed all the billionaires and their income from the chart it wouldn't change the median income at all because the position of the median would only move 350 places. If you took away the top ten percent the median position would shift to the left 5% and the median annual income decreases a few thousand dollars per year. But in no way is the typical American living in poverty and desperation. (Turns out that only 11% of the US live in poverty.)
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  How do you define poverty? The federal poverty line is a figure that where most people live would afford you a fine living commuting between your 2 jobs and your tent living as a hobo and the public library where you give yourself a sponge bath.

michaelmrose 4y ago

This context free numbers isn't illustrative or even useful. The world isn't populated by median Americans earning median salaries in a median cost of living area. Imagine 5 households in areas where the poverty line for their household size are 30k 50k and 70k 70k 70k We have could have learned from the sample that the majority live in areas where wages are higher but so are costs of living and the median value is 70k which seems like a lot of money until we figure out that rent alone costs most of this money and all parties are on food stamps. This also ignores just how far below that median value many of the bottom half actually are. The bottom half lest we forget is 169 million Americans many just getting by as their entire segment of the population shares about 10% of the total income and virtually none of its wealth. None of these facts about the actual distribution of wealth and income is captured by looking at a median income and making up a fiction about what an imaginary American can afford.

wang_li 4y ago
>None of these facts about the actual distribution of wealth and income is captured by looking at a median income and making up a fiction about what an imaginary American can afford. Funny you would end by writing of making up a fiction about what an imaginary American can afford when both this comment and your other one are imaginary realities. You say rent takes up most of some $70k, it doesn't. You say "all parties" at that income level are on food stamps, they're not, the percentage of Americans using food stamps varies by year but is 13-15%. You say 169 million Americans are below the median income, no, because we're talking about household income. And, you know, why would you put the 72 million children into this as they generally have $0 income and their expenses are paid by their parents. As well, I'm quite aware of what the distribution of income as I've looked it up in the past. The Congressional Budget Office does a regular report on the distribution of household income and taxes. In the last such report, 2018, the average pretax household income for the bottom quintile before taxes is $22k, after taxes and means tested transfers their income is $38k (yes, they do have a negative net tax rate.) Which is sufficient to live in most big cities in the US. These [0] people did an analysis of the cost of living in the largest 74 cities in the US. The most expensive among these cities was Irvine, CA with a monthly cost of living of $3062 and a median individual income of $55k. Americans don't have to fight rats for scraps of food from the trash. 0. https://www.move.org/lowest-cost-of-living-by-us-city/ https://www.move.org/lowest-cost-of-living-by-us-city/