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> Yes, life sucks. It sucked worse for your ancestors. Most of the time you are right, but the Baby Boomers are a pretty big outlier in this regard There is n

> Yes, life sucks. It sucked worse for your ancestors. Most of the time you are right, but the Baby Boomers are a pretty big outlier in this regard There is no question that the average Baby Boomer has had it much better than their children and grandchildren have

ajross 2y ago
Not numerically. Median real income today is more than twice what it was in the 60's. FWIW: there's a... sociological problem with arguments framed around that. When you measure US citizen wealth in the 1960's it looks unimpressive[1]. When you picture a "baby boomer", you see a working class family with no debt behind a white picket fence in a beautiful new subdivision living a great life on just the one income. And those families existed! So what gives? You're looking at a family headed by a working class white man. Not everyone could get those "working class" jobs that supported a family in the suburbs. There was plenty of poverty in the 60's, it was just hidden along with the single moms and minority communities we didn't record. Things today are a lot more even, which means that the "white picket fence" demographic perceives things going in the opposite direction from what's actually happening. [1] Relative to today, anyway. The US in the 60's was obviously an extremely wealthy country!
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  > Not numerically. Median real income today is more than twice what it was in the 60's The 60s is not really relevant to any discussion about Baby Boomers, who would have been teens at the oldest in the 60s Compare the years they were in their prime
  - ajross 2y ago
    OK, median income has "almost" doubled since the 70's and 80's. I don't see how you think that helps the case?
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      Income is not the same as purchasing power Purchasing power is around 7-8x less today than the 70s
      - ajross 2y ago
        Why do people do this? That's not just wrong, or even laughably wrong, it's completely made up nonsense. FRED doesn't have PPP median income, but here's GDP per capita PPP. A little more than double what it was in 1970: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGDPCHUSA625NUPN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGDPCHUSA625NUPN (You can recover PPP median income if you like by pulling in the nominal GDP and median and multiplying by the fraction, but I'm too lazy to do it for you.) You are wrong. You are VERY wrong. Your intuition about the state of the world has been colored by a bunch of vibes you've been fed that don't have any basis in fact. At all.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
        It seems to me that you're believing cherry picked statistics that show what you want to believe, and you think that I'm doing the same, which is entirely fair. It's clear we're not gonna agree, but thanks for the discussion regardless. It's always interesting to see the perspective of the people I disagree with. Cheers
        ajross 2y ago
        It's a GDP graph. How do you cherry pick a GDP?! Good grief.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
        It's cherry picking because you choose to reference GDP, which imo is not remotely relevant to the conversation, instead of referencing relevant metrics like Purchasing Power https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SA0R https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SA0R Hope that clears it up!
swatcoder 2y ago
For the average white Baby Boomer with Anglo or Central/Northern European protestent ancestry and two resident parents, one of whom being unionized or a white collar professional, no question at all. And while there were enough of those to write and televise a mythos about that America in counterpoint to the communist threat overseas, it actually represents a narrow slow that the "average" Baby Boomer did not get to enjoy and doesn't live in much benefit of today.

ajross 2y ago

Not numerically. Median real income today is more than twice what it was in the 60's. FWIW: there's a... sociological problem with arguments framed around that. When you measure US citizen wealth in the 1960's it looks unimpressive[1]. When you picture a "baby boomer", you see a working class family with no debt behind a white picket fence in a beautiful new subdivision living a great life on just the one income. And those families existed! So what gives? You're looking at a family headed by a working class white man. Not everyone could get those "working class" jobs that supported a family in the suburbs. There was plenty of poverty in the 60's, it was just hidden along with the single moms and minority communities we didn't record. Things today are a lot more even, which means that the "white picket fence" demographic perceives things going in the opposite direction from what's actually happening. [1] Relative to today, anyway. The US in the 60's was obviously an extremely wealthy country!

bluefirebrand 2y ago
> Not numerically. Median real income today is more than twice what it was in the 60's The 60s is not really relevant to any discussion about Baby Boomers, who would have been teens at the oldest in the 60s Compare the years they were in their prime
- ajross 2y ago
  OK, median income has "almost" doubled since the 70's and 80's. I don't see how you think that helps the case?
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    Income is not the same as purchasing power Purchasing power is around 7-8x less today than the 70s
    - ajross 2y ago
      Why do people do this? That's not just wrong, or even laughably wrong, it's completely made up nonsense. FRED doesn't have PPP median income, but here's GDP per capita PPP. A little more than double what it was in 1970: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGDPCHUSA625NUPN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGDPCHUSA625NUPN (You can recover PPP median income if you like by pulling in the nominal GDP and median and multiplying by the fraction, but I'm too lazy to do it for you.) You are wrong. You are VERY wrong. Your intuition about the state of the world has been colored by a bunch of vibes you've been fed that don't have any basis in fact. At all.
      - bluefirebrand 2y ago
        It seems to me that you're believing cherry picked statistics that show what you want to believe, and you think that I'm doing the same, which is entirely fair. It's clear we're not gonna agree, but thanks for the discussion regardless. It's always interesting to see the perspective of the people I disagree with. Cheers
        ajross 2y ago
        It's a GDP graph. How do you cherry pick a GDP?! Good grief.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
        It's cherry picking because you choose to reference GDP, which imo is not remotely relevant to the conversation, instead of referencing relevant metrics like Purchasing Power https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SA0R https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SA0R Hope that clears it up!

swatcoder 2y ago

For the average white Baby Boomer with Anglo or Central/Northern European protestent ancestry and two resident parents, one of whom being unionized or a white collar professional, no question at all. And while there were enough of those to write and televise a mythos about that America in counterpoint to the communist threat overseas, it actually represents a narrow slow that the "average" Baby Boomer did not get to enjoy and doesn't live in much benefit of today.