Hacker News Reader

Comment by Tarsul | Hacker News Reader

thanks for that link. "More than 53 million people— 44 percent of all workers ages 18–64 in the United States— earn low hourly wages", which is defined as earning 2/3 of the median male worker. The median hourly wage for those 53 million people is $10.22. One might argue about semantics but these stats are devastating nonetheless.

View on HN

A quick search tells me that the median is 35k per year, the mean time off is 10 days and there are 13 national holidays.

So that would put it at roughly $15 * 48 hours * 48 weeks. For 35k. I agree, that's devastating.

I don't know if you are in the US:

US national holidays mean nothing in the context of employment. The US does not require private employers to close, pay extra, or provide paid time off for those holidays.

Nope, I'm not. Fair enough: 46.6 hours per week at 50 weeks then, not 48 hours at 48 weeks.

What a weird stat. I've never seen anyone take a fraction of a median like that. I can't think of any reason to create such a strange figure besides being dishonest.

Forty four percent of the workforce earns less than two thirds of the median male wage is devastating? There are hundreds of millions of people who live on less than $2 a day. The US has the highest average household consumption in the world by a very large margin. If you think US living standards are inadequate the rest of the world is much, much worse.

if the US starts to orient itself after third world countries, then you're correct: It's really going good. It's all relative. I thought the US would rather compare itself to Europe, Japan, etc. but okay.

To be clear, when using something like household consumption expenditure, Japan and the subset of European countries that match up end up looking quite “poor” and have been for some time, with the gap IIRC increasing.

That e.g. personal health costs are included in there obviously, uh, muddies things.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com