3 ms·

>I think you'll be hard pressed to find a single category in which contemporary Americans have less than 1970's Americans, for any reasonable value of x. If you

>I think you'll be hard pressed to find a single category in which contemporary Americans have less than 1970's Americans, for any reasonable value of x. If you dispute this, go ahead and find that single category. I hear this argument all the time, but it doesn't seem to match reality as I've personally observed it. Example: my uncle, who had only a high school education, was a delivery driver for a bakery, and he had a wife who didn't work, 2 kids, a house, and a car. The idea that somebody like him (like, say, his son-in-law, who works the same job for the same employer to this day) could do that now is laughable - unless his family qualified for government assistance, which might actually be true for a family of four on that income.

yummyfajitas 14y ago
I didn't say that relative wages were the same for every single category of employment. I said that consumption of virtually every category of consumer good and service has increased across the board for virtually every income category.
- rsheridan6 14y ago
  I'm not talking about a category of employment as in "delivery driver," I'm talking about a category of employment as in "jobs accessible to bottome 50% of people." If relative wages are declining in that category, it's hard to make a case for increased prosperity, unless you're just talking about the other half, or about increased work hours.
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    If relative wages are declining in that category, it's hard to make a case for increased prosperity... I think you meant to say "if absolute wages are declining". Increased prosperity could easily make relative wages decline - the bottom might increase by 10%, while the top might increase by 20%. But forget the bottom 50%, lets look at people below the poverty line. Even most people below the poverty line today have a house (with 2 rooms per person) and a car. And that house has all sorts of amenities that were uncommon even for the mid to upper classes in the 1970's. http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf The numbers suggest the lifestyle formerly characterized as "middle class" is now accessible to virtually every American. I.e., we have more now than ever before.
    - rsheridan6 14y ago
      Anyone below the poverty line with a house is probably not paying for it themselves. If they're more likely to have houses now, it's probably because they're getting Section 8 now instead of apartments in the projects.

yummyfajitas 14y ago

I didn't say that relative wages were the same for every single category of employment. I said that consumption of virtually every category of consumer good and service has increased across the board for virtually every income category.

rsheridan6 14y ago
I'm not talking about a category of employment as in "delivery driver," I'm talking about a category of employment as in "jobs accessible to bottome 50% of people." If relative wages are declining in that category, it's hard to make a case for increased prosperity, unless you're just talking about the other half, or about increased work hours.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  If relative wages are declining in that category, it's hard to make a case for increased prosperity... I think you meant to say "if absolute wages are declining". Increased prosperity could easily make relative wages decline - the bottom might increase by 10%, while the top might increase by 20%. But forget the bottom 50%, lets look at people below the poverty line. Even most people below the poverty line today have a house (with 2 rooms per person) and a car. And that house has all sorts of amenities that were uncommon even for the mid to upper classes in the 1970's. http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf The numbers suggest the lifestyle formerly characterized as "middle class" is now accessible to virtually every American. I.e., we have more now than ever before.
  - rsheridan6 14y ago
    Anyone below the poverty line with a house is probably not paying for it themselves. If they're more likely to have houses now, it's probably because they're getting Section 8 now instead of apartments in the projects.