Comment by paulddraper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulddraper | Hacker News Reader

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This.

US home ownership has gone up and down between 64% and 69% in the past 30 years, currently at the low end of that. But at the same time, the average new house went from 1,600 to 2,500 sqft.

Thirty years ago, how many people plopped down $5k for a TV? $700 for a phone? $150/month for telecom?

Life expediency has increased by 6 years from 1975 to 2010.

And to top it off, we're working less than we ever have. Average hours per year: 1,900 (1950), 1,800 (1970), 1,725 (1990), and 1,700 (2010).

Despite the "back in my day" doomsaying, on average, our quality of life has never been better.

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My two cents why:

Cent 1: In a globally connected world, we are painfully obvious of the millions of people living more comfortably than us. When it was just Mr. Jones down the block, it didn't feel so bad.

Cent 2: Culture and priorities have changed. Rural population has been dropping for decades. People are more likely to rent a 500 sqft apartment in a large urban center than rent/buy a 900 sqft house in a town of 20k. Not a bad thing, just a different thing, and we have to take into account the whole picture.

> And to top it off, we're working less than we ever have

This really struck me. I am going to assume your numbers ar correct, but if you could point me to a source I would love that. (did a quick search on the web, couldn't find exactly what I would like)

My first thought was that it is fascinating that we would be working 12% less hours per person. I wonder how that break down by gender. The number I keep finding is per day men @ 8.4 vs women @ 7.7 which doesn't match your number because it is only talking about full time employment. Hence if you can help me find better numbers that would be great.

Then I realized the horrible truth residing in your numbers: in 1950 it was almost exclusively men who worked. Today women make up almost half of the workforce. On a per capita basis we are working much, much more than we used too. From this Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#United_States:

  The average working time of married couples – of both husband and wife taken together – rose from 56 hours in 1969 to 67 hours in 2000

Turns out things are worse than they used to be. Nobody spent $700 on a phone but they did spend $600, in 1986 dollars, on a microwave - which is roughly $1300 in 2016. And few people spend $5000 on a tv today. A $5000 dollar tv is likely 75 inches or more - I don't know if I have ever been in a home with a TV that large.

The middle class has disappeared and it is not because they became wealthy, lazy or demanding.

First, homemakers aren't unemployed. They just work at different things.

Second, look at the employment rate charted over the last forty years or so. Some of that may be explained by retiring baby boomers, but it's the following generations that will need to pick up the economic slack to pay for retirement, healthcare, prop up their home values so they can retire, etc.

>First, homemakers aren't unemployed. They just work at different things.

So you are agreeing - since before one person was devoted full time to homemaking, and now they must find paid employment - that work still needs to be done so it must be done in addition to the hours worked at an employer.

so instead of one person doing 40 hours at an employer and one person staying home to keep up the house - we have two people working 40 hours each and then working overtime to maintain their house after work. We've added 40 hours of work to the equation.

> if you could point me to a source I would love that

Data from FRED. Graphs: http://www.businessinsider.com/average-annual-hours-worked-f...

You're correct that more people working per household is a likely cause of less hour per employee, larger houses, etc.

The average new house is targeted at a small minority of relatively wealthy people, because they're the most profitable market. It's not going to be terribly representative of what normal people want. (Even here in the UK, where new house sizes are effectively capped now, they still cost more than a larger older house because house builders want to make money..)

Televisions themselves have come way (way!) down in price.

Bigger, better televisions cost 1/2 as much before accounting for inflation.

There was certainly a brief period where medium sized flat screens were a little bit pricey.

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