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One thing that might be missing from your calculation is that "one median-family-year of work" meant "about one person working" in 1940 but means "about two per

by maratc 2y ago

One thing that might be missing from your calculation is that "one median-family-year of work" meant "about one person working" in 1940 but means "about two persons working" in 2022.

mgiampapa 2y ago
It's also discounting workplace efficiency gains. Both white and blue collar jobs are far more efficient than ever before.
- maratc 2y ago
  OTOH, an interesting point is that the Manhattan project cost 0.4% of GDP in 1940, and Apple buyback ($110B) is 0.4% of 2023 GDP ($27T).
  - pmontra 2y ago
    Apple gets its money from all around the world, so every country pays a part of those buybacks. The USA in 1940 were a smaller empire than they are now so, I might be wrong, but the Manhattan project money came mostly from inside the country. This means that it's easier for Apple to find and spend those money than it was for the USA in 1940.
    - ralfd 2y ago
      Population of US was also only 132 million in 1940. Today it is 333 million.
Retric 2y ago
The difference isn’t quite that large as many households are just single people and while the female labor force participation rate increased (34% 1945 vs 57% now) the male labor force participation rate declined ( 83% 1948 vs 68% now). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001 Similarly there where a great deal of households in the 1940’a with two working adults.
- bombcar 2y ago
  Female labor force participation near the end of a major world war was already probably much higher than just a few years before.
- spywaregorilla 2y ago
  The share of dual income households has more than doubled. Your statistic seems likely to be biased by people retiring. https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2019/CES-WP-19-19.pdf https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2019/CES-WP-19-19.pdf I'm guessing the rise of dual income houses is much more visible in the median than are retirees dropping down the labor force participation rate.
  - Retric 2y ago
    You read that statement incorrectly, the share of dual incomes among married couples doubled. Married-couple households however have dropped dramatically over time, 76% of households in 1940, 55% of all U.S. households in 1990, and 46% in 2020. “In 1940, married couples with children represented 43 percent of all households; married couples without children represented 33 percent of households”
    - spywaregorilla 2y ago
      Sort of interesting, but I think does not negate the point. A dual income household is not necessarily a dual income married couple. For the purpose of calculating dual income households, you have to consider non married romantic partners and even just relatives and roommates. And again, retirees dropping things down. I cannot find stats going back, but a majority of current households today are dual income. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characteristics-and-selected-expenditures-of-dual-and-single-income-households-with-children.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characte... This effect of the median family being dual income is likely true for now, and false for 1940. It is much stronger if you subset down to "families", but this nuance doesn't likely appear in the "median household income".
      - deleted 2y ago
Laremere 2y ago
This take ignores the unpaid work performed for the family and community, largely by women. When two people in a family are employed, more of their household labor (cooking, caring for the young and the old, etc) is purchased instead of provided by a family member.
- adrianN 2y ago
  Housework productivity has gone through the roof since the invention of dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, etc. My grandma used to actually work hard the whole day to run the houshold. My family today manages with maybe two or three hours of light work per day.
  - ornornor 2y ago
    If only we did the same with other work, we’d also all only be working a few hours a day rather than 8–9 still.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      But how would Jeff Bezos swim in money if his underpaid parcel couriers would be able to financially survive on working four hours a day? It's utterly ridiculous how much of the productivity increases of the last decades ended up not distributed to the workers either in terms of wage/salary hikes or reduced working hours. Something like billionaires rarely existed for a long time, usually it was the royal family and that's it - and now, alone in the last 20 years the amount of billionaires is 6x higher than at the start of the millennium. All of that wealth has been looted from the lower classes and in quite a few cases the taxpayers. [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/220002/umfrage/anzahl-der-dollar-milliardaere-weltweit/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/220002/umfrag...
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      People don't actually want this. We sell ourselves on the Jetsons-like idea of automating away our daily tasks so we can just live our lives, but that scares us. Most people don't actually seem to want to have mist most of their waking hours free to do whatever they want.
watwut 2y ago
The wife still needed to eat and get cloth. That one person needed to feed her. Also, female employment was 28% not 0 in 1940.
leobg 2y ago
Well. The partner staying home in the 1940s also rendered services to the family. Services that now need to be purchased from outside. So really, it’s always two people spending their waking hours. Only I suspect that in the 1940s, things were a little less stressed out. Judging from today’s bestseller lists and all those productivity and hack your body / marriage / x podcasts.

by maratc 2y ago

One thing that might be missing from your calculation is that "one median-family-year of work" meant "about one person working" in 1940 but means "about two persons working" in 2022.

mgiampapa 2y ago

It's also discounting workplace efficiency gains. Both white and blue collar jobs are far more efficient than ever before.

maratc 2y ago
OTOH, an interesting point is that the Manhattan project cost 0.4% of GDP in 1940, and Apple buyback ($110B) is 0.4% of 2023 GDP ($27T).
- pmontra 2y ago
  Apple gets its money from all around the world, so every country pays a part of those buybacks. The USA in 1940 were a smaller empire than they are now so, I might be wrong, but the Manhattan project money came mostly from inside the country. This means that it's easier for Apple to find and spend those money than it was for the USA in 1940.
  - ralfd 2y ago
    Population of US was also only 132 million in 1940. Today it is 333 million.

Retric 2y ago

The difference isn’t quite that large as many households are just single people and while the female labor force participation rate increased (34% 1945 vs 57% now) the male labor force participation rate declined ( 83% 1948 vs 68% now). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001 Similarly there where a great deal of households in the 1940’a with two working adults.

bombcar 2y ago
Female labor force participation near the end of a major world war was already probably much higher than just a few years before.
spywaregorilla 2y ago
The share of dual income households has more than doubled. Your statistic seems likely to be biased by people retiring. https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2019/CES-WP-19-19.pdf https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2019/CES-WP-19-19.pdf I'm guessing the rise of dual income houses is much more visible in the median than are retirees dropping down the labor force participation rate.
- Retric 2y ago
  You read that statement incorrectly, the share of dual incomes among married couples doubled. Married-couple households however have dropped dramatically over time, 76% of households in 1940, 55% of all U.S. households in 1990, and 46% in 2020. “In 1940, married couples with children represented 43 percent of all households; married couples without children represented 33 percent of households”
  - spywaregorilla 2y ago
    Sort of interesting, but I think does not negate the point. A dual income household is not necessarily a dual income married couple. For the purpose of calculating dual income households, you have to consider non married romantic partners and even just relatives and roommates. And again, retirees dropping things down. I cannot find stats going back, but a majority of current households today are dual income. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characteristics-and-selected-expenditures-of-dual-and-single-income-households-with-children.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characte... This effect of the median family being dual income is likely true for now, and false for 1940. It is much stronger if you subset down to "families", but this nuance doesn't likely appear in the "median household income".
    - deleted 2y ago

Laremere 2y ago

This take ignores the unpaid work performed for the family and community, largely by women. When two people in a family are employed, more of their household labor (cooking, caring for the young and the old, etc) is purchased instead of provided by a family member.

adrianN 2y ago
Housework productivity has gone through the roof since the invention of dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, etc. My grandma used to actually work hard the whole day to run the houshold. My family today manages with maybe two or three hours of light work per day.
- ornornor 2y ago
  If only we did the same with other work, we’d also all only be working a few hours a day rather than 8–9 still.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    But how would Jeff Bezos swim in money if his underpaid parcel couriers would be able to financially survive on working four hours a day? It's utterly ridiculous how much of the productivity increases of the last decades ended up not distributed to the workers either in terms of wage/salary hikes or reduced working hours. Something like billionaires rarely existed for a long time, usually it was the royal family and that's it - and now, alone in the last 20 years the amount of billionaires is 6x higher than at the start of the millennium. All of that wealth has been looted from the lower classes and in quite a few cases the taxpayers. [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/220002/umfrage/anzahl-der-dollar-milliardaere-weltweit/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/220002/umfrag...
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    People don't actually want this. We sell ourselves on the Jetsons-like idea of automating away our daily tasks so we can just live our lives, but that scares us. Most people don't actually seem to want to have mist most of their waking hours free to do whatever they want.

watwut 2y ago

The wife still needed to eat and get cloth. That one person needed to feed her. Also, female employment was 28% not 0 in 1940.

leobg 2y ago

Well. The partner staying home in the 1940s also rendered services to the family. Services that now need to be purchased from outside. So really, it’s always two people spending their waking hours. Only I suspect that in the 1940s, things were a little less stressed out. Judging from today’s bestseller lists and all those productivity and hack your body / marriage / x podcasts.