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> brutal serfdom You can't seriously believe that spending all your income each month while living in the country with the highest standard of living in histor

by bpt3 1y ago

> brutal serfdom You can't seriously believe that spending all your income each month while living in the country with the highest standard of living in history is "serfdom." Hyperbolic nonsense like this makes the rest of the article hard to take seriously, not that I agree with most of it anyway.

CuriouslyC 1y ago
Take a look at the way people in a large part of the US are living. Paycheck to paycheck not because they're idiots that likes to consume, but because shit is expensive and wages haven't kept up with productivity for like 50 years. People are suffering, agree with the rest of what I say or not, but I can't let you slide on that.
- bpt3 1y ago
  Take a look at how the median American lives compared to the median resident of nearly every country on earth. If that's suffering, I'm not sure what to call life elsewhere. And to this specific comment, wages outpaced inflation since the 1970s for everyone but the poorest households (I believe the bottom 10% are the exception, who I would probably agree are suffering in some sense). Working class real wage growth actually outpaced white collar real wage growth for a couple years post-COVID, for the first time in a long time. Also, wage measurements don't normally measure total compensation, notably health insurance which has been increasing much faster than wages or overall inflation for decades. Also, there's no reason to expect wage growth to match productivity growth. Productivity gains are largely due to company investment, not increased effort from workers, and household expenses are not positively correlated with productivity metrics.
- jandrewrogers 1y ago
  Few people in the US are living "paycheck to paycheck" out of economic necessity. We have extensive data on this separately from BLS and the Federal Reserve. The percentage of US households that are living paycheck to paycheck out of economic necessity is 10-15% last I checked. That isn't nothing but it is a small fraction of the population. Retirees comprise a significant portion of that for obvious reasons. There is an additional ~30% that is notionally living paycheck to paycheck as a lifestyle choice rather than an economic necessity. The median US household has a substantial income surplus after all ordinary expenses. There may be people suffering economically but it is a small minority by any reasonable definition of the term.
- osn9363739 1y ago
  Is my life as easy as my parents. Probably not. But the idea that life is bad is a wild take. But if I spent all my time on social media/reddit/watching the news. I'd be pretty depressed too and think the sky is falling. I feel like the USA could turn it round pretty quick with the slightest of social policy to support the lower income earners?
discordance 1y ago
The US is ranked 14th in terms of standard of living in (in order): Luxembourg, Netherlands, Denmark, Oman, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, United States, Estonia. Based on these metrics: Quality of Life Index, Purchasing Power Index, Safety Index, Health Care Index, Cost of Living Index, Property Price to Income Ratio, Traffic Commute Time Index, Pollution Index, and Climate Index. Source: https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.j...
- bpt3 1y ago
  And by a very objective metric, which is disposable income for the median household, the US is #1. Sorry if I don't take numbeo.com all that seriously. If you do, you should poll people to see if they'd rather live in Oman or the US and think again.
  - discordance 1y ago
    That’s a fair point and looking at most of the countries on the list with higher ratings, it looks like they are more socialist and have higher equality. No doubt in my mind that if you are wealthy in the US you can have a very good life, but on a whole and for most people there it’s probably fitting that it’s lower down the list for quality of life.
  - chlorodose 1y ago
    [dead]

by bpt3 1y ago

CuriouslyC 1y ago

Take a look at the way people in a large part of the US are living. Paycheck to paycheck not because they're idiots that likes to consume, but because shit is expensive and wages haven't kept up with productivity for like 50 years. People are suffering, agree with the rest of what I say or not, but I can't let you slide on that.

bpt3 1y ago
Take a look at how the median American lives compared to the median resident of nearly every country on earth. If that's suffering, I'm not sure what to call life elsewhere. And to this specific comment, wages outpaced inflation since the 1970s for everyone but the poorest households (I believe the bottom 10% are the exception, who I would probably agree are suffering in some sense). Working class real wage growth actually outpaced white collar real wage growth for a couple years post-COVID, for the first time in a long time. Also, wage measurements don't normally measure total compensation, notably health insurance which has been increasing much faster than wages or overall inflation for decades. Also, there's no reason to expect wage growth to match productivity growth. Productivity gains are largely due to company investment, not increased effort from workers, and household expenses are not positively correlated with productivity metrics.
jandrewrogers 1y ago
Few people in the US are living "paycheck to paycheck" out of economic necessity. We have extensive data on this separately from BLS and the Federal Reserve. The percentage of US households that are living paycheck to paycheck out of economic necessity is 10-15% last I checked. That isn't nothing but it is a small fraction of the population. Retirees comprise a significant portion of that for obvious reasons. There is an additional ~30% that is notionally living paycheck to paycheck as a lifestyle choice rather than an economic necessity. The median US household has a substantial income surplus after all ordinary expenses. There may be people suffering economically but it is a small minority by any reasonable definition of the term.
osn9363739 1y ago
Is my life as easy as my parents. Probably not. But the idea that life is bad is a wild take. But if I spent all my time on social media/reddit/watching the news. I'd be pretty depressed too and think the sky is falling. I feel like the USA could turn it round pretty quick with the slightest of social policy to support the lower income earners?

discordance 1y ago

The US is ranked 14th in terms of standard of living in (in order): Luxembourg, Netherlands, Denmark, Oman, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, United States, Estonia. Based on these metrics: Quality of Life Index, Purchasing Power Index, Safety Index, Health Care Index, Cost of Living Index, Property Price to Income Ratio, Traffic Commute Time Index, Pollution Index, and Climate Index. Source: https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.j...

bpt3 1y ago
And by a very objective metric, which is disposable income for the median household, the US is #1. Sorry if I don't take numbeo.com all that seriously. If you do, you should poll people to see if they'd rather live in Oman or the US and think again.
- discordance 1y ago
  That’s a fair point and looking at most of the countries on the list with higher ratings, it looks like they are more socialist and have higher equality. No doubt in my mind that if you are wealthy in the US you can have a very good life, but on a whole and for most people there it’s probably fitting that it’s lower down the list for quality of life.
- chlorodose 1y ago
  [dead]