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Yes, that's true too I was honestly just talking about "people used to afford a house and family with two vacations per year on a single income, now people can

Yes, that's true too I was honestly just talking about "people used to afford a house and family with two vacations per year on a single income, now people can't even afford a house on two incomes" which seems to be a common refrain nowadays I know a lot of my friends and peers believe they have worse standard of living than their parents did at the same age, and the data does seem to agree with them. Existence of smartphones is a nice convenience but it doesn't seem to offset being able to afford a house or flights and hotels for vacations

thegrim33 3mo ago
I doubt "the data" is anything more than a survey of said people's feelings on the manner, which is basically of zero value. But we live in an age where if enough people say something is true that "makes" it true, objective reality be damned.
EA-3167 3mo ago
While true a lot of subtlety is hidden in those seemingly simple comparisons. For example has the median/average home size grown since then? If so by how much? How about amenities that are expected in a modern home? In the 1950's and 1960's what did a vacation look like for a single-income family with kids back then? What does it look like now? If you look at the data what you see is that people have more, want more, and spend more. People didn't necessarily fly to Europe, maybe a vacation was a local seaside, a road trip, or something similar. Heck even for the same vacation to the same place you pay more today because supply and demand lets it happen; you'll pay 250% more for a trip to Disney now than you would in the 1970's, but then again the global population has exploded along with the population globally that can afford to go to Disney. https://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/05/25/the-size-of-a-home-the-year-you-were-born/ https://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/05/25/the-size-of-... I know that everyone wants to believe in some kind of quick political or economic fix, but it just isn't that simple. If you want to spread out the existing wealth for everyone then the average standard of living would drop. If you want to raise that standard of living while extending it to more people... well, good luck?
- bluefirebrand 3mo ago
  > For example has the median/average home size grown since then Sure. Let's compare to the 90s. According to Google, New detached homes are 10-20% larger in square feet today than they were in the 90s. Also according to Google, new detached homes are 3.3x more expensive, inflation adjusted, than the 90s. Of course mortgage interest rates play a part here too, but that's a really bad starting point And that's just for starters. There are also places in the USA where the minimum wage has not increased since the 90s, and there may actually still be people trying to get by on a wage of 5.50 an hour. I know all of this is oversimplifying things to an extent. Economics is hard. But it's not that hard...
  - EA-3167 3mo ago
    I was around in the 1980's and people weren't buying a home and a yearly family vacation on a single income, that era was long gone. If you're talking about those "Good Old Days" then you're talking about the postwar economy that was decisively long gone by '80s.
    - ksenzee 3mo ago
      They were buying a home and a yearly family vacation on two modest incomes, though. Try doing that now.
      - EA-3167 3mo ago
        They might have been "buying" a home with a long-term mortgage, and by the 1980's you were seeing the rise of individual credit card debt as a way to finance a previously unobtainable lifestyle. The 1980's saw the first "cash back" card and rewards cards followed, along with a culture of assuming debt to consume. What you saw in the 1980's ended much like it did in 2008, it wasn't sustainable and it went bust just as it would over and over and over since. BUT people want more, they want to pay less for it, and many more people want that. If you're a politician you don't win by fighting against that, you swim with the currents and find scapegoats to blame instead.

thegrim33 3mo ago

I doubt "the data" is anything more than a survey of said people's feelings on the manner, which is basically of zero value. But we live in an age where if enough people say something is true that "makes" it true, objective reality be damned.

EA-3167 3mo ago

While true a lot of subtlety is hidden in those seemingly simple comparisons. For example has the median/average home size grown since then? If so by how much? How about amenities that are expected in a modern home? In the 1950's and 1960's what did a vacation look like for a single-income family with kids back then? What does it look like now? If you look at the data what you see is that people have more, want more, and spend more. People didn't necessarily fly to Europe, maybe a vacation was a local seaside, a road trip, or something similar. Heck even for the same vacation to the same place you pay more today because supply and demand lets it happen; you'll pay 250% more for a trip to Disney now than you would in the 1970's, but then again the global population has exploded along with the population globally that can afford to go to Disney. https://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/05/25/the-size-of-a-home-the-year-you-were-born/ https://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/05/25/the-size-of-... I know that everyone wants to believe in some kind of quick political or economic fix, but it just isn't that simple. If you want to spread out the existing wealth for everyone then the average standard of living would drop. If you want to raise that standard of living while extending it to more people... well, good luck?

bluefirebrand 3mo ago
> For example has the median/average home size grown since then Sure. Let's compare to the 90s. According to Google, New detached homes are 10-20% larger in square feet today than they were in the 90s. Also according to Google, new detached homes are 3.3x more expensive, inflation adjusted, than the 90s. Of course mortgage interest rates play a part here too, but that's a really bad starting point And that's just for starters. There are also places in the USA where the minimum wage has not increased since the 90s, and there may actually still be people trying to get by on a wage of 5.50 an hour. I know all of this is oversimplifying things to an extent. Economics is hard. But it's not that hard...
- EA-3167 3mo ago
  I was around in the 1980's and people weren't buying a home and a yearly family vacation on a single income, that era was long gone. If you're talking about those "Good Old Days" then you're talking about the postwar economy that was decisively long gone by '80s.
  - ksenzee 3mo ago
    They were buying a home and a yearly family vacation on two modest incomes, though. Try doing that now.
    - EA-3167 3mo ago
      They might have been "buying" a home with a long-term mortgage, and by the 1980's you were seeing the rise of individual credit card debt as a way to finance a previously unobtainable lifestyle. The 1980's saw the first "cash back" card and rewards cards followed, along with a culture of assuming debt to consume. What you saw in the 1980's ended much like it did in 2008, it wasn't sustainable and it went bust just as it would over and over and over since. BUT people want more, they want to pay less for it, and many more people want that. If you're a politician you don't win by fighting against that, you swim with the currents and find scapegoats to blame instead.