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No, you couldn't. The average working male earning 6200 USD a year in 1963 was supporting 2-3 other people (i.e., the nuclear family), not 5. This is almost dir

No, you couldn't. The average working male earning 6200 USD a year in 1963 was supporting 2-3 other people (i.e., the nuclear family), not 5. This is almost directly in line, via inflation, with the average US household income and size in 2024. I agree with the larger point about prosperity, and I think there are ways in which the US (and other developed countries) have gone backwards in QoL metrics. But a serious conversation about that needs to start with numbers rooted in reality, not a rose-glass view of the past.

Retric 3y ago
Take your typical family of 4 living on 2 incomes today. Are they living in a 1,500sf house (median size in 1960)? Without AC, no cable TV, no computers, 1 car, no exotic / organic foods except from the garden, few toys, 60’s era medicine. Do they actually repair or even make clothes? How about home repairs? My mother was a teen in the 60’s and while objectively they were well above the median income for the time period in many ways they lived like extremely poor people do in 2024. Some of that was actually saving money for retirement, but mostly it was just far lower expectations.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  Right. By virtually every metric, the average American family is materially more prosperous than they would have been in the 1960s. Backwards movement in QoL metrics is mostly on the left tail: impoverished Americans have access to AC and refrigerators, but often live in food deserts or are subjected to perverse policies in our social safety net (e.g. welfare cliffs that punish people for working by taking away benefits that enable them to work).
- lowkey 3y ago
  You make some valid points but one nitpick: what we call organic food today, they simply called food in the 60's since all food was by definition organic.
  - GeneralMayhem 3y ago
    That is abjectly false. Synthetic pesticides have been used since before the second world war. Silent Spring was written in 1962 about the effects of the amounts of DDT that had already accumulated in the environment by that point.
tossandthrow 3y ago
Yes, so I am saying that a median income today could sustain a 6 person household if you were allowed to fix your comfort level to the level of the 60s. That is 3 more than a single median income supported in the 60s. I am definitely not trying to paint a rose-glass view of the past. I am saying that we do have more prosperity today than we had 60 years ago. I am also saying that we pay of a lot of time to have things that provide diminishing returns. (Ie. would you rather have flush toilets or access to facebook - style of reasoning). Maybe the famous 80% value for 20% cost is also inflating?
- woodruffw 3y ago
  Sorry, I badly misread your post! I agree about the diminishing returns.

Retric 3y ago

Take your typical family of 4 living on 2 incomes today. Are they living in a 1,500sf house (median size in 1960)? Without AC, no cable TV, no computers, 1 car, no exotic / organic foods except from the garden, few toys, 60’s era medicine. Do they actually repair or even make clothes? How about home repairs? My mother was a teen in the 60’s and while objectively they were well above the median income for the time period in many ways they lived like extremely poor people do in 2024. Some of that was actually saving money for retirement, but mostly it was just far lower expectations.

woodruffw 3y ago
Right. By virtually every metric, the average American family is materially more prosperous than they would have been in the 1960s. Backwards movement in QoL metrics is mostly on the left tail: impoverished Americans have access to AC and refrigerators, but often live in food deserts or are subjected to perverse policies in our social safety net (e.g. welfare cliffs that punish people for working by taking away benefits that enable them to work).
lowkey 3y ago
You make some valid points but one nitpick: what we call organic food today, they simply called food in the 60's since all food was by definition organic.
- GeneralMayhem 3y ago
  That is abjectly false. Synthetic pesticides have been used since before the second world war. Silent Spring was written in 1962 about the effects of the amounts of DDT that had already accumulated in the environment by that point.

tossandthrow 3y ago

Yes, so I am saying that a median income today could sustain a 6 person household if you were allowed to fix your comfort level to the level of the 60s. That is 3 more than a single median income supported in the 60s. I am definitely not trying to paint a rose-glass view of the past. I am saying that we do have more prosperity today than we had 60 years ago. I am also saying that we pay of a lot of time to have things that provide diminishing returns. (Ie. would you rather have flush toilets or access to facebook - style of reasoning). Maybe the famous 80% value for 20% cost is also inflating?

woodruffw 3y ago
Sorry, I badly misread your post! I agree about the diminishing returns.