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You're sort of making the exact mistake I mentioned here. How far do those wages go vs the 70s? Add together housing costs, fuel costs, healthcare costs, transp
by drawfloat 2y ago
You're sort of making the exact mistake I mentioned here. How far do those wages go vs the 70s? Add together housing costs, fuel costs, healthcare costs, transport costs, food costs, general price rises? Why can single income households no longer really support a family with a house if everything's got better and everyone is lying?
- bloppe 2y agoThey go further. That's why I linked to median real income. It's exactly the stat that matters: looking at the actual person in the middle of the pack (not the mean, which is distorted by outliers) and controlling for inflation using the CPI, which uses a weighted average of hundreds of different cost categories to represent typical spending. I think housing makes up like 40% of it (don't quote me on that though) so it's definitely being taken into account. Food and healthcare are also big parts. Now you may not have a typical spending profile (a lot of people in NYC spend way more than 40% on rent) but the economy is broadly doing quite well. Why can't you buy a house? You probably could, but probably not in the location you want. This was one of the most enlightening articles I've read on why: https://goodreason.substack.com/p/maybe-treating-housing-as-an-investment https://goodreason.substack.com/p/maybe-treating-housing-as-...
- drawfloat 2y agoHousing in my hometown (ex-mining town, incredibly poor) has increased 1172% since the mid 1990s (£11k->£112k). Salaries have increased less than 100% in that time (£15,034 -> £29,593)
- bloppe 2y agoSounds like the mining bust is a big factor, which isn't exactly representative of the whole economy. Also sounds like you're not in the US so none of my stats are relevant to you.