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Comment by divbit | Hacker News Reader

I think you hit the nail on the head with this sentence: "A few of years ago, Gallup found that what most people wanted, all over the world, was a secure full-time job. That, after all, is the way most people get enough money to live on."

But then backtrack here and miss the point "A lot of us, men and women, grew up thinking of male full-time jobs as real jobs. It’s no wonder that many find the decline of the dad job so unsettling."

I don't think it's 'realness', whatever that means, that matters. It is the benefits like healthcare, ability to afford a place to live, education, and further the social and mental health benefit of working in proximity with people with similar interests and abilities.

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And yet, people consume more healthcare, education, and live in bigger homes than ever before (as measured by consumption statistics). So that clearly can't be the issue.

I think this paper hits on a bigger issue: http://www.ddorn.net/papers/Autor-Dorn-Hanson-MarriageMarket...

As men's employment opportunities drop relative to women's, their value in the sexual and marriage markets drop significantly. And women's employment opportunities have done nothing but rise. Female hypergamy is probably the real issue here.

>>And yet, people consume more healthcare, education, and live in bigger homes than ever before (as measured by consumption statistics). So that clearly can't be the issue.

Of course it can. Ever heard of debt?

> Ever heard of debt?

I lold. Shouldn't there be corresponding data on debt then? National individual debt rising in relation?

Without data on hand, though, I do believe that has been the case

We have plenty of data. Take a look at this: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_united_states_of_...

What about rising household net worth?:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TNWBSHNO

That's mostly housing, which was financed by debt.

Debt is not magic. Somebody or something has to build the houses, provide the healthcare and education.

Yes. In the case of debt, that somebody or something is being financed by the future.

What does this mean? Someone builds a house and has their livelihood provided for while they do it. Once the house exists, it can be used for shelter. Money is imaginary. What is "financed by the future" and what does it mean?

Student loans. That's what "financed by the future" means.

It means that money is worthless unless it can eventually be converted into goods and services that you want. Debt means "money now, goods and services in the future". But what happens when you arrive in the future - as inevitably you will - and those things aren't there?

It kind-of is magic - that is how money gets created.

Maybe that is the case for some, but I think your argument misses a large percentage of the workforce, which is, the part that is already married and / or has kids.

As a side note...

While the housing stock is on average larger is is also significantly older than it was 30 years ago.

New houses are built to what I consider exorbitant prices. People finance 4x annual income or more.

The thing being sold is really the debt instrument, not the house itself.

People are spending more on healthcare, education, and housing, but they aren't getting more; rather, the prices on these things have gone way up.

Incorrect. See the AIC (Actual Individual Consumption) source cited here:

https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/09/25/high...

AIC - measured in PPP and inflation adjusted terms - has risen in the US and Europe.

It's not hypergamy, it's paper money.

The realty and education bubbles are inflated by cheap credit. The cheap credit in the US exists mostly because Federal Reserve can print more money, and the whole world will buy. "There is a huge demand for $100 bills worldwide." If not dollars, US government papers ate considered safe, no matter the amount printed.

This is also makes US labor unable to become cheaper and compete with the places where it currently escapes. Hence some of the problems with dad jobs.

I also think there's a lot to be said for the routine of the "dad job". For many people, it's comforting to have structure in one's life, for every day to follow a similar pattern; surprises are stressful, and when every day is much like the last, you don't get many surprises. Someone like Elon Musk no doubt has busy and chaotic days, perhaps no two alike, and many people, in their heart of hearts, would not relish the prospect of that.

The rise of the so called "gig economy", and the increasing reliance on freelancing and remote work, does a lot to undermine the comfortable patterns and routines of traditional 9-5 work - for some people this is great (no drudgery of commuting is just one benefit of many), and for others I suspect it's quite the opposite. In so many of the "how to work remotely" guides you do, in fact, see a lot of importance placed on effectively separating work and non-work life, designating a specific area for working, and working particular hours - much of this, really, is intended to recreate something akin to the routine of the dad job, except without the office and the commute and the physical presence of your coworkers.

I can only assume your being down voted by young people who have no idea how beneficial a routine is for a married parent.

I completely missed the excitement of being downvoted, sadly! You're probably right, though I find saying anything negative about remote work on HN tends also to get a less than stellar reception.

The routine is not just for comfort. A person with no kids would look at my family's Google calendar and puke.

I'd add that "healthcare" as a benefit is a very American concern. In most real countries, that's taken care of separate to our jobs.

Yes, I almost expanded further on the healthcare point for that reason, but then realized the author seems as if they are possibly writing from the UK.

Australia (mentioned because Americans love to talk about the size of their country somehow making single-payer impractical).

Honestly, when we say size, we mean diversity. Countries used as success examples are far more homogeneous in their population and culture.

Can you clarify what impact that has in regards to population? I don't believe the US has significantly different medical needs compared to any other OECD nation?

I don't know if America's "size" is really used as an argument against single-payer working here but if it is, I'm sure what is meant is population size. What's an example of referencing a country's large size meaning more diverse or heterogeneous rather than greater population?

But I agree that "size" in this case definitely does not mean geographic size. Geographic size might be a factor for why America doesn't have better telecommunications or rail system, not health care.

I'll walk that last part back a bit, geographic size, and having sparsely populated areas, can make providing health care for all more difficult and therefore more costly. But I think it would be a very minor factor and Australia serves as a good example of that, it has a much smaller population but some of it is comparably far-flung.

I agreed with, and upvoted your answer, but upon reflection, so long as insurance policies in America are still constrained by state borders, there might well be a (fairly arbitrary) hurdle on risk pools. States with more and a higher concentration of population centers may benefit from a more diverse risk pool than states that look more like Alaska.

Trump and some Republicans have argued for allowing selling policies across state lines but I think more knowledgable people have said it would not make a significant difference in health care costs and poses some race-to-the-bottom risks.

I think most insurance providers are multi-state entities so higher costs in one state can be balanced by lower costs in others. But there may be some limits; if the ACA requirement that insurers use 80% of revenue on health care costs is applied per-state, they may not be able balance out a really unhealthy state. But this isn't an issue due to America's geographic or population size or even the quantity of states, it's that America has much more political power at the state level.

Makes no sense. The EU has a larger and far more diverse population than the US, and yet has universal healthcare and demonstrated exactly how to handle it if you're so diverse:

Just set up multiple systems. The US even has very convenient boundaries to split up the systems along: States, just like the EU.

Even most countries with universal healthcare further subdivides their systems. E.g. Norway (5 million people) operates regional health trusts that are largely independent. The UK (60 million) does the same on a larger scale (more trusts) and leverages the number of trusts to improve management of individual trusts by occasionally having successful trust take over the running of trusts where management is failing.

The "size" argument is almost always a total red herring.

I really don't understand this argument. I can only assume it's some sort of euphemism I don't have the cultural context to understand.

Belgium is split right down the middle by language and culture, with many people supporting a split into two independent countries. Spain has Catalonia and the Basque country, two culturally and linguistically distinct regions that have long fought for independence. Ireland has spent most of the last century in a slow-burning civil war. Half of Germany was part of the Soviet Union until 1989.

When people say that universal healthcare can't work in the US because of "diversity", what exactly do they mean by that word?

He means racial diversity because in America a lot of white people don't like black people

"Diversity" is frequently a euphemism for "black people".

I believe he is writing from the U.K. but they have the NHS, or did I misunderstand your point?

The point was that, given the NHS, the health benefits issue is probably, for good reason, not something I would expect the author to consider in their summary of dad jobs.

Ok, understood, and agreed.

Yes! This "health insurance is a job benefit" is an artifact of labor competition in the US during WW2. In Switzerland, where health insurance is mandatory, your employer specifically isn't allowed to purchase it for you...you have to go into the same market as everyone else (which is more fair, and doesn't impair labor mobility).

Great point about labor mobility. Many would be American entrepreneurs may never take the plunge (start-up, small business, etc.) because of healthcare cost and fears.

Many would also work part time (e.g. to spend more time with their kid) if they could got health insurance at the same time. Detaching health insurance from your job is great for lots of reasons.

There is another huge issue with the employer playing for health care right now. On econtalk[1] Mark Warshawsky suggested that the current regulations and tax incentives lead to rising health care cost that also leads to a stagnating take home salary for lower end workers. Legally everyone at a company must get access to the same health care benefits. Since health care benefits are paid for in pre-tax money high earners who are already well off benefit quite a bit from better health care. Someone who pays very little taxes and can barely pay the rent probably would rather take some more cash home. However, most companies are more focused on "attracting top talent" so more gold plated health care plans emerge. According to the author most of the wage increases for low pay workers has just been eaten up by increased health care cost. That's supposedly were the income gap is coming from to a larger degree. If everyone got to pick their own insurance on a fair market this would look very different.

[1] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/01/mark_warshawsky.htm...

Gold plated plans are not really the problem in driving up health care costs, that has more to do with private operation if what is essentially a public service with a natural monopoly (you can't shop around in emergencies, and you probably wouldn't look for the best price if you wanted the best care instead). And really, are you going to say no to that cat scan because it has a small chance of finding anything?

The big problem with employer provided insurance is that they suck a lot of healthy people out of the individual market. We already know richer people are healthier, and they are likely to be enrolled in group plans. So what is left in the individual market are necessarily less healthy on average, so the premiums suck.

For us, it's that our insurance is tied to our jobs, so we can't think of leaving or even "taking a break" if we can afford it!

Note the Sanford-Ryan bill moves the US in this direction. It is one of four bills meandering through Congress in first months of Trump adminstration.

Interesting. I don't think the most middle class Americans would go for this, they like their "perks", and...if they did this, I'm not confident that individual policy premiums would fall like they should.

I literally stay at my job because I'm the sole earner for my family and the health insurance is very good (PPO) - if it wasn't for health insurance I'd probably freelance and spend more time at home

Private healthcare insurance is also offered as a benefit in places like the UK, but it tends to be the bigger companies that offer it.

It means the employee can get their treatment weeks, even months before they would have otherwise - that's important if you have a painful or debilitating condition. That is, the employee struggles to be an employee due to government budget constraints.

I'm not sure what the UK is like but New Zealand has a public system and, to be clear to American readers who only hear negatives about wait times, you generally are not waiting if you have a life threatening issue. The wait time if for issues like joint replacements and varies depending upon your need and the availability of medical staff etc.

A suspect a few people are going to read "weeks, even months before they would have otherwise - that's important if you have a painful or debilitating condition. " and assume that is a given for a public system. You often have to wait for non urgent issues in the US as well if you want a specific doctor or clinic.

In the UK most of the private insurance is "top up" type insurance where you go to an NHS GP first, but then can ask to get referred privately if your condition isn't serious enough to get you seen by a specialist "quick enough". So you are paying mainly for extra convenience and speed over what is medically necessary, which also makes these insurances cheap, since with most of them you'll use the NHS for anything urgent.

When Obamacare was first passed I thought that the best thing they could do for healthcare in the US would be to phase out employer medical benefits. If the cost of healthcare wasn't hidden, I don't think it would be used in the same way as it is now.

At the very least, there should be a federal program that covers all children. We can easily afford it.

I get to choose my car insurance separate from my closing my job. I get to choose my life insurance separate from my job. I get to choose my liability insurance separate from my job.

Why I have to choose health insurance and my employer together is beyond me.

Because even more people would choose not to obey the individual mandate and the system would work even worse.

Of course, before Obamacare it was because pre-existing conditions made the private health insurance market ridiculous.

I think viewing healthcare in terms of choice is the wrong angle to approach it from. You can choose not to have a car, you can choose not to have life insurance. You cannot choose not to get sick. Healthcare is not a market but a basic right that almost everyone needs at some point in their life. Everyone can get the same illnesses and then need the same treatments, therefore aside from a few perks like single vs double hospital rooms there really isn't such a thing as different levels of healthcare. Given that everyone needs healthcare and how much care you need has nothing to do with your income level the fairest way to fund it is progressive taxation, from each according to ability and to each according to need in traditional socialist fashion. Any other system creates perverse outcomes, like forcing people to die sooner because their parents couldn't afford a better school for them which limited employment options.

Of course, the trick with healthcare funded through taxation is to avoid having it cut down until everyone is worse off, not just low income earners.

> you can choose not to have life insurance. You cannot choose not to get sick.

I can't choose not to die. I can't choose not to get sick.

I can choose not to continue my family's income. I can choose not to receive medical treatment.

There is nothing uniquely special about health insurance.

Are you really choosing not to receive treatment if you can't afford it?

Absolutely.

For example I tore my right ACL last summer. I chose to wait 6 months to have an MRI and surgery (in fact, I had no idea what the injury was for that entire time), because we have a high deductable and my wife will give birth this year.

You might say that's just an artifact of a broken system, and you might be right. But say, if I was 50+, I'd likely choose to avoid the surgery and expense altogether. People forgo medical treatment all the time.

Seems like in that case you could have afforded it, but chose not to due to high cost and non critical nature of your injury.

Actually you can't choose not to receive medical treatment, generally. In emergency situations you are distinctly unable to choose not to have medical treatment, because you're essentially incapable of informed consent.

Since EMTALA means the hospital has to treat you, and as a society people will ensure you get taken there, you are in fact incapable of doing the opting out at the times it's likely most expensive.

And frankly, as a society, we shouldn't trust you: because the outcomes speak for themselves - people don't voluntarily choose not to get medical care. They lie about it when they don't need it, to suit their politics and greed.

> people don't voluntarily choose not to get medical care

My sarcasm detector is weak today, but I'm assuming that's what that is.

I like life insurance because it will help the sons and daughter of the diseased. One can read more from this link too http://bit.ly/2mpD7J1

It's not that it's taken care of - you just don't have much choice in terms of healthcare and neither do your peers, so you end up not caring. If the local healthcare can't help you, you will pay the big money in America anyways. Or you'll just die/suffer. Of course, the degree to which that happens depends on the country.

A secure full time job is code for "consistent income". It's hard enough for people to budget and live on a consistent but middling income. Even more so if it's very low income. Inconsistency creates high anxiety and is a form hand to mouth living. It's very stressful. I don't think it's so much about the type of work it's just not having to live in fear.

I do think 'realness' factors into it though. If you can connect what you're doing with the value the company gets from you doing it, you naturally are going to feel like you doing well == company doing well == security for all. This is, in fact, the implicit bargain in long-term employment.

As business and industry has become more abstract, more interconnect, more outsourced, and as in general human capital's value has crashed much harder than any graph from the article will show you, it becomes significantly harder for an employee to understand how his or her role actually translates into value. Or if it is understandable, it's abstracted away through a few other layers of the business and many of those layers change often, leaving you wondering if you're going to continue to be a part of it.

I think 'realness' factors hugely into it.

With real jobs its meant jobs that arent temp jobs.

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