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Comment by dan-robertson | Hacker News Reader

> most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s

I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment.

There are many pitfalls with measuring long-term inflation. How much did an internet connection cost in the 1970s? What about a computer? What about a smartphone? These modern technologies make peoples lives much better and were somewhere between impossible and impossibly expensive in the 1970s so an inflation metric can’t really take their price changes (from infinity to cheap) into account. Another is quality. Compared to the 70s, a new car is faster, safer, more comfortable, and more fuel efficient. Similarly, most houses are bigger and better in America today.

I think it is important to note that talking about long term inflation is different, and perhaps harder, than talking about short-term inflation which is what the OP is about.

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Internet connections cost poor people nothing in 1970 because they weren't necessary and could happily live their lives without one. The real item we're looking at here is *communication*, which was cheap: the stamp you needed to send in the form for your taxes cost a few cents. You could get away with using payphones for the few phone calls you absolutely needed to make.

In 2021, internet connections and cellphones are both expensive and mandatory if you want to participate in modern society. Your minimum wage job probably texts you your schedule, so if you don't have a cell phone, you can't even work. Many government forms have been moved online, with legacy options either unavailable or poorly services. Payphones are all but gone. If you're lucky to have a local library then maybe you can get some time on a decrepit computer with slow internet access, but the majority of the poor rely on their cellphone for internet access.

An internet connected smartphone is not equivalent to the postal service (plus a pay phone or landline I guess). It may be that you use a computer or something else for the things that most people use smartphones for, wand so don’t realise how much they cover.

You also didn’t mention having to go to the library (distance + fuel/car/travel costs + more time) for information, finding jobs from newspaper advertisements or word of mouth.

But the claim I was disagreeing with is that most Americans are worse off now than in the 70s and the description “most Americans” does not match the sort of very poor people whom you describe. So I feel this comment is only partially relevant

I’m curious - what personal experience with poverty in the USA do you have?

I’ve found that shapes people’s perspective on the topic significantly.

Poverty is not just about absolute purchasing power adjusted for location and time. There is also very much an unspoken social context, sometimes even codified into law.

In 1970, obviously nobody expected you to own a smartphone because it didn't exist. Noone had access to such a thing. Not so in 2021 western Europe. The example very much holds in that sense. You could fully participate in society without that expense.

I'm not speaking of keeping up with the Joneses here. I'm speaking of pervasive implicitly embedded demands on people's lifestyles.

What do you think about the effects of the way housing insulation requirements are often written?

What do you think happens when you invite someone to a party at your place in the countryside that is only reasonably reachable by car?

One of the best ways to get a feel for this kind of thing is to go live in an area with significantly lower median purchasing power for some time, a place where the average trustworthy hard-working person has difficulties making ends meet. I've done so. Even if I lived a lifestyle of relative luxury myself, it helped widen my perspective. I can absolutely recommend the experience!

Seems like you are talking about social inequality (a zero sum game) vs poverty (a non zero sum game)

The idea that no one was expected to own cell phones so they didn’t enrich our lives is clearly false.

Can apply this to any technological advance. So for eg. in the 1800s no one expected you to own a car. So the invention and subsequent technology driven deflation of car prices didn’t make everyone’s lives better.

> Seems like you are talking about social inequality (a zero sum game) vs poverty (a non zero sum game)

The two are not opposed. There is significant overlap significantly in many ways, even in the way government treats the very definition of poverty. In most countries, you'll find that poverty is defined as a percentage of median income.

Let me try to rephrase to make this more tangible. The minimum of things and services I need to procure to get minimally acceptable social inclusion is lower in some contexts than in others. 1970 versus 2021. Silicon Valley versus rural Latvia. I hope you get the point.

> The idea that no one was expected to own cell phones so they didn’t enrich our lives is clearly false.

I was certainly not claiming that! Cell phones or cars can clearly enrich the lives of those able to afford them. Their existence also creates a potential gap between haves and have-nots though.

Or to formulate it more sharply, you couldn't be poor because of not being able to afford a cell phone in 1970. You can be poor because of not being able to afford a cell phone in 2021. Does that mean a cell phone is a bad thing? Of course not!

> Or to formulate it more sharply, you couldn't be poor because of not being able to afford a cell phone in 1970. You can be poor because of not being able to afford a cell phone in 2021. Does that mean a cell phone is a bad thing? Of course not!

So.. how does that imply that people are worse off now than in 1970? Your entire thesis seems to be that the jealousy people will feel from seeing others have things they don't will outweigh all of the material gains of the last half century.

That seems.. obviously false? to me

>So.. how does that imply that people are worse off now than in 1970? Your entire thesis seems to be that the jealousy people will feel from seeing others have things they don't will outweigh all of the material gains of the last half century.

As an American, I don't subscribe to that thesis. At all.

What I do see (as someone in his mid 50s) is that the biggest difference is that folks back then believed (and it actually happened for many) that they would be better off than their parents.

That's no longer the case. There are a variety of reasons for this, not least of which are the systematic[0] changes to our economy that pushes wealth and resources to the top, at the expense of those at the bottom.

This didn't happen by accident, and I'm not really surprised that folks here on HN aren't focused specifically on that issue -- primarily because most of us are beneficiaries of said systematic changes.

The worst part (IMHO) is that these changes will only benefit those at the top for a limited time. Given that 70% of the US economy is consumer spending, taking purchasing power away from the vast majority of consumers is a recipe for a bad economy.

Increasing wages and safety nets makes good economic sense, as it broadens the market for consumer goods, makes it easier for folks to act in entrepreneurial ways, and in the medium to long term expands the economic pie, creating a healthier, more resilient economy.

Pushing wealth/resources to the top just doesn't do that at all. How many yachts/houses/cars/dresses/suits/pizzas/kale smoothies/etc. can one person reasonable purchase/use?

Even if you spread the money around more broadly, the wealthy will continue to be wealthy, and the rest won't have to work two or three jobs just to feed their kids boxed macaroni and cheese five times a week.

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/systematic

? I absolutely agree with you. Inequality nowadays is quite bad, overall welfare could be much better if we weren't hamstrung by it.

But I don't see how this means I'm ideologically committed to the absurd thesis that we haven't seen quality of life improvements for the average person in the last half century - going from a time where we had only recently eliminated actual starvation in the US, schools were still basically segregated, inflation rampant, a draft, etc. etc.

>But I don't see how this means I'm ideologically committed to the absurd thesis that we haven't seen quality of life improvements for the average person in the last half century - going from a time where we had only recently eliminated actual starvation in the US, schools were still basically segregated, inflation rampant, a draft, etc. etc.

I don't believe my comment even implied that.

Rather, I was providing my own take on your assessment of markvdb's comment[0], which I don't disagree with, I just wanted to address the elephant in the room (the systemic changes pulling more wealth/income to the top at the expense of those at the bottom) that hadn't been addressed.

That's not to say you didn't make a good point. You did. But I felt there was more to say.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592162

> So.. how does that imply that people are worse off now than in 1970? Your entire thesis seems to be that the jealousy people will feel from seeing others have things they don't will outweigh all of the material gains of the last half century.

The point is that there are many things you are now required to have to meaningfully participate in society, that were just not required in 1970. For example, to get vaccinated in my country for COVID, you need to access a web page, sign up using email, and you'll get an SMS notification when your registration is accepted.

So, without an internet connection and mobile phone, you have to rely on someone else who does own one of these.

The conclusion being: someone who can't afford a mobile phone and internet connection may be poor in 2021, even if people without an internet connection or mobile phone were perfectly well off in 1970.

> to get vaccinated in my country for COVID, you need to access a web page, sign up using email, and you'll get an SMS notification when your registration is accepted.

I guarantee you that if you live in the developed world there are alternate pathways to getting vaxxed.

> someone who can't afford a mobile phone and internet connection may be poor in 2021, even if people without an internet connection or mobile phone were perfectly well off in 1970.

Funnily enough, a greater proportion of people have smartphones in the house today than had landlines then (60s & 70s), so even by this (absurd) metric where having a smartphone is equal to having a landline in terms of utility/welfare, we still have seen material improvements.

I am surprised that this has prompted such an argument here. I am curious as to the ideological motivations behind denying any progress in the last half century, this sort of rhetoric didn't seem nearly as popular even a few years ago.

People aren't denying progress, they're denying the idea that inflation should treat that progress as a decrease in prices.

> most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s

This statement seems obviously false to me and is what I was disagreeing with. This entire conversation was spawned because many people felt the need to defend this statement.

>This statement seems obviously false to me and is what I was disagreeing with. This entire conversation was spawned because many people felt the need to defend this statement.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't disagree with your point at all.

Materially we've got more stuff, sure. The issue I pointed up (and perhaps that others were alluding) is that social mobility has been negatively affected over the past 50 years.

And the prospect that one won't be able to "succeed" (whatever definition of success you want to use) because the deck has been systematically stacked against you in favor of those who are already wealthy is definitely a factor in why folks feel they're not as well off as they'd like to be.

What's more, it's been getting harder for the poorest Americans to make ends meet for quite some time. And that situation has been making its way up the economic ladder too. That result is no accident either.

As such, it's no wonder many folks wonder why they can't get ahead even if they do what they're told is necessary to make that happen.

That's a cultural and economic problem that has been growing for a long time. And one that cheap gadgets and technology can't fix.

What could help is sharing the economic benefits of the increased productivity enabled by technology. But we're not doing that, are we?

> social mobility has been negatively affected over the past 50 years.

I'm really not at all confident this is even true, unless you are restricting your sample to white people & men.

Seems like social mobility for women, who comprise half the population, is markedly better than it was 50 years ago.

I don't think it is true that it has been getting "harder" for people to make ends meet for quite some time. Again, in the time period we're comparing to, people were quite literally starving to death/dying from malnutrition at times. Nowadays, people have their ends met well enough that this does not happen in America.

This is in spite of rampant inequality, but still - measurable improvements on pretty much all measures. Really, many of the bigger causes of early death now are due to self-destructive things people can do with more material abundance.

> The idea that no one was expected to own cell phones so they didn’t enrich our lives is clearly false.

It's not like everyone in the 70s was walking around completely depressed waiting for some breakthrough in computing technology so they could carry a computer in their pocket and ease all their ills. People could be content and maybe even happy without access to technology that didn't exist. Many Americans would likely be happier if they got rid of the "smart" part of their phones.

Well happiness and material wealth are two very separate things.

People can be very content and happy with very basic necessities. Some of the happiest people on the planet are renunciate monks and nuns based in brain scan research (for eg mathieu richard)

And of course people can be depressed even to the point of being suicide while being wealthy. (Any number of high profile cases)

I get what you're saying and I absolutely think the invention of phones, the internet, etc. made everybody's lives better.

But it's also true that these things become necessities when everybody is expected to have them. There is a low but non-zero level of "keeping up with the Joneses" you have to do just to keep living your life reasonably, because things change around you. Job applications are done over the internet now. Most higher education requires a good computer, webcam, and internet connection. You hail a cab with your phone. People suck at giving directions because they assume you have GPS. Stuff like that.

So I think it is fair to price some of these "luxuries" into the cost of living even though in the past people got along just fine without them.

Affording Internet access and a cell phone is no problem for me, but the only reason I have either is because they're de facto required for my work, for my spouse's work, and for our kids' school. I do use it for other stuff since I have it anyway, but I absolutely see it as a ~$140/mo tax on participating in the economy. Stuff like streaming services only makes sense because I already have to pay that "tax"—it'd be way cheaper to just buy all the media I want otherwise. $140/mo + (cost of streaming services) buys a lot of movies, books, TV shows, and music.

Overall, I think having the Internet makes my life significantly worse except for how it makes it possible for my family to participate in the modern education and the modern job market. It's a benefit mainly because you're shut out from things that previously did not require it if you don't have it.

[EDIT] ~$140/mo is my home Internet service and roughly what it costs for Internet service on two cell phone lines. I'd probably keep phone + SMS service even without the societal requirement to have Internet service.

>I absolutely see it as a ~$140/mo tax on participating in the economy

* for most people they'd be paying for the internet/cell phone regardless of whether it's required for their job or not. I doubt the pandemic pushed up internet adoption rate by much.

* $140/month seems to be on the high side. are you really paying that much for the bare essentials? Or are you paying for gigabit home internet and a 25GB/month cell plan?

Um good luck finding the car of your choice these days. Even before pando/trade war an in-demand model took weeks or months while other cars sit on lots.

We can’t argue that quality of life is sooo much better when production is such a mess. The only reason we hear the complaints is because of quality of life.

People with money can handle $1 more for an order of pretzel nuggets but make them wait and extra 2 minutes for it and the labor shortage is all over the news.

> in-demand model took weeks or months while other cars sit on lots.

America's model of making a bunch of random models and shipping them out to sit on lots in the hope someone wants that model is bizarre.

In most other countries you order exactly what you want and they build it.

It is also in part due to the explicit tie in of the dealership system by which we buy cars. Dealerships can't go away because they have baked the law around them. Automotive manufacturers are forbidden from building their own stores. Though this is a state by state issue, and Tesla is the manufacturer skirting this rule.

We also have franchised dealers in the UK. They have show-rooms and help you design the model you want and sort finance if you’ve got limited funds, and then they get it built and shipped.

Same thing - only difference is they don’t have cars in stock. It’s done on demand.

That’s what I did with my new car just a few weeks ago (Ford). Built and ordered online. People like shopping in person so it makes sense to have that “mall” like experience. And having the car available to test drive on the spot must make for more sales

Not all dealerships let you order the trim you want, even if it's ok to sell in your state.

Chrysler pulled this on me so I substituted the good with one from another maker. Months later Chrysler called with all trims magically available. This was well before the panorama but during the trade war.

The reason is actually that it costs the factories more money to shut down and wait than to keep things running. So they keep producing cars and trucks without chips, and letting them sit in lots. I know this first hand with family and close friendships with folks in production management within General Motors, Dana Corp.

The dealership and lot model has been the case in the US for many decades - it isn't anything caused by the pandemic or anything to do with the chip shortage.

> “We can’t argue that quality of life is sooo much better when production is such a mess.”

Not for nothing, but I’d bet my crispest dollar that our quality of life is still outrageously good. If you have to wait a few months for the $60,000 custom build F150 of your dreams, so be it. If someone’s gotta wait 5 minutes for their McNuggets, it’ll build out their patience.

Sure the system is under stress, but the problem is and always was us. The wealth inequality exacerbates it all and we’ll all eventually act like animals over it.

> How much did an internet connection cost in the 1970s? What about a computer? What about a smartphone?

This is the elitist fallacy that somehow having access cheap smartphones and plastics mostly manufactured in China at the back of our working class jobs make your life better while all else indicates life expectancy and quality of life across the board is declining for majority of Americans. Many Americans including my millennial generation feels we are worse off than our parents generation.

How does having cheap access to internet makes the quality of your life better if I may ask? Does it help with the ballooning cost of housing prices throughout the country? Or healthcare? Or education for that matter? These are three basic costs and they all have gone over 100% in most cities in a decade or so. Not to say people are more lonely and isolated than they ever have been.

> How does having cheap access to internet makes the quality of your life better

Whoa that's a bit of a reach no? How about the ability to drive around with GPS? Or stay easily in touch with family living far away? Taking photos of your baby and having it stored on the cloud for free? The ability to learn almost anything for free?

I'm not saying it's all great, it isn't, but we can't deny the benefits.

> How about the ability to drive around with GPS?

Maps, and the ability to read them.

> Or stay easily in touch with family living far away?

Phones, you know good old land lines

> Taking photos of your baby and having it stored on the cloud for free?

Why do I need physical photos stored in the cloud?

> The ability to learn almost anything for free?

Have ya heard of libraries?

Does technology make these more convenient? Absolutely. Does it make them materially better? Not in my opinion.

I'm fairly convinced that having to do things as you described was better for mental health as well. The always on, always connected lifestyle has big downsides.

Driving with a map was better than how it is now? We're 10 years from having the damn thing drive itself for us. I suck at directions, I can imagine without the internet I would just avoid drives to places I wasn't familiar with and miss out on a bunch of things.

Yeah, you have to use a map but your kid only has to interact with the school bullies at school and you aren't temped to reach out to your college fling behind your wife's back beacuse you never see her bikini photos.

Things have gotten better, but in lots of ways they have gotten worse.

Have no argument with you there, I'm not saying it was all a win. Mental health problems seem to be increasing and the internet is part (but probably not all) of the problem.

You would discover you are better at directions than you think, if you need to find places without a phone and GPS.

You suck at directions because you rely on GPS. Navigating is a skill like any other.

> Maps, and the ability to read them.

You basically need another passenger with you otherwise you'll have to do a lot of stops. I'd even say its a bit risky to drive like that.

> Phones, you know good old land lines

So you are saying having a high def video call with my brother living across the world, for free, is just like calling him in the 60s? It used to be crazy expensive to call abroad. And you couldn't see!

> Why do I need physical photos stored in the cloud?

Do you physically develop all your photos? If you do you are an exception to the rule, most people develop maybe 1% of their photos.

> Have ya heard of libraries?

Come on now. Try learning C++ in a library, good luck with that. Also, it's only the rich world that has high quality libraries accessible to everyone.

> You basically need another passenger with you otherwise you'll have to do a lot of stops. I'd even say its a bit risky to drive like that.

Oh, FFS. Pre-GPS, I would look up my destination on a map or street atlas and learn the route. If a portion was especially tricky, I might jot down a few reminders, or pull over before that leg and review the map.

Is GPS a wonderful convenience, especially with traffic monitoring & such?

Hell yeah, I love it and wouldn't want to go back to maps without a damn good reason.

But don't pretend it's somehow vital.

> So you are saying having a high def video call with my brother living across the world, for free, is just like calling him in the 60s?

The vast majority don't use video calling.

Still, constantly available communication is, IMO, a huge net positive.

> Do you physically develop all your photos?

That was obviously how it worked before ubiquitous digital cameras.

Photo situation is better today, though I might argue that the low marginal cost of each photo leads to people robbing themselves of vivid memories of what they're seen. There's some research that supports that idea, though I don't have a reference immediately on hand.

> Come on now. Try learning C++ in a library, good luck with that.

That's exactly what I did. Checked the ARM out of the library. Eventually bought my own copy when I decided it was worth it.

As much as I love the wealth of information available on the net, I sometimes miss how good libraries used to be.

So many misunderstandings in here, probably because you're too young to have done any of these things. (Source: I am pushing 50.)

Driving with maps doesn't require another passenger or a lot of stops, generally. You plan your route with the map before starting out, and if necessary write the turns on a piece of note paper. You may need to stop and consult the map if you miss a turn. I'll grant that GPS is more convenient, but maps worked better than you think they did.

Phones vs. video calls, I'll mostly grant you. Long distance calls were expensive, and video gives you facial and body language cues. On the other hand, audio quality was a lot higher when everyone was on land lines, so you didn't need those cues as much to make up for indistinct audio.

Physical photos: before 2000 or so, everyone developed all of their photos. Most cameras were film, then. Even when digital cameras came into widespread use, it was common to print the best pictures. People really only started not developing photos when smartphones became common.

Libraries: I learned C from a couple of textbooks, and C++ (such as it was in 1993) from a book published by the company that sold me the compiler. All of these would have been available in a reasonably sized library, or in a small library via interlibrary loan.

> I learned C from a couple of textbooks, and C++ (such as it was in 1993) from a book published by the company that sold me the compiler.

You ignored that part of my argument about only the rich world having high quality libraries. What if you'r from India or Africa or even rural America? Now even a poor Indian can solve Hackerrank challenges on his phone. It's not as easy or as convenient but it's much better than his prospects 30 years ago.

Unfamiliar cities could certainly be more challenging to drive around prior to GPS, you got lost more often, and yes you often needed to have a paper map. It took me a while before I really developed a decent mental map for driving around the Boston area. But I find people seemingly arguing that travel to unfamiliar places was this daunting task absent GPS availability rather amusing.

For photos I shot B&W (which I printed selectively) and then slides. But most people just took their roll of print film to the pharmacy or whatever and got a stack of 3 1/2" x 5" color prints back.

I’m not trying to be condescending but I’m guessing you’re pretty young?

>> Try learning C++ in a library, good luck with that.

How do you think people learnt to code before the internet? I borrowed large textbooks on Basic/VB, C++, and Turbo Pascal from friends and libraries. And this wasn’t a long time ago. I did this as recently as 2005.

>> Do you physically develop all your photos? If you do you are an exception to the rule, most people develop maybe 1% of their photos.

Why would you take photos and not develop them? When I finish a roll I take it to the local store and they develop the photos. I then put them in an album or store them in another way. People have been doing this for a long time.

>> So you are saying having a high def video call with my brother living across the world, for free, is just like calling him in the 60s?

Most people I know disable video in meetings. The majority don’t do video calls with friends unless they have some friend that calls them that way. I find audio calls much more enjoyable that video calls and I definitely don’t think I’m in the minority there. If you haven’t seen someone in years and they live far away a video call might be nice but in most cases audio is not only enough, but better.

>> You basically need another passenger with you otherwise you'll have to do a lot of stops.

Most journeys people make repeat. You learn the route. The modern obsession with GPS is so we don’t get there a minute early or late. For infrequent, really long drives you can plan your trip in advance, noting down the steps of the journey rather than following the map constantly. It’s also amazing how far you get just following road signs when you know the general towns on your route.

> How do you think people learnt to code before the internet? I borrowed large textbooks on Basic/VB, C++, and Turbo Pascal from friends and libraries. And this wasn’t a long time ago. I did this as recently as 2005.

I'm not denying that, I'm just sating progress was way slower - especially for newcomers before the internet. Imagine trying to solve problems without Google or Stackoverflow when you're a 15 old kid trying to learn programming. You're stuck on some shitty installation of Linux or some missing package and have no idea why the compiler gives this error message. How do you even get Linux? Have no idea how they did stuff back then but it was for sure harder to just to get something up and running. So easy to give up. Programming in that era used to be something 1 in maybe 50 children tried. It was no way near as accessible as it is today.

The flip side of that is that since it's now easier for everyone to learn new skills and solve problems, the requirements and expectations from workers pretty much went up proportionally.

Have you traveled using maps and GPS? They are very different, and not even comparable.

It seems to me like comparing a shovel to a ditch digging machine.

It is possible to navigate using maps. But not practical for the mass audience of GPS who can’t use maps. And impossible for the industries that require GPS (uber types).

Technology is a multiplier that increases the returns on things my removing labor and letting it focus on other, more productive things.

Similarly, arguing that the internet isn’t 1000x easier to learn things because libraries exist is odd to me. Have you ever tried to use a book in a library to find that it’s checked out? Or not available at all. Inter library loans used to take 30 days, if I had access to a good library, and now that information is available to me for free.

This doesn’t mean the world is perfect or that we don’t still have so much work to do. But it’s just an odd perspective that seems unmoored from reality, since these things can be objectively measured.

Am I in some kind of weird HN bubble where no-one has ever used a physical map?

I've travelled extensively pre-turn by turn navigation using physical maps, i spent a year motorcycling across mainland Europe in my early 20's using nothing but physical maps, I did the same but in the US during the early-mid 2000's.

Was it as easy as sticking a zip code into a magic box and having it tell me where to go and when to take a turn? Probably not. But it wasn't much more complicated because I know how to read maps and can remember things for more than 10 seconds.

I was having the same bizzaro-world thoughts.

These guys are screwed if they ever come across a treasure map.

Well as a society we are super screwed if some event wipes out the internet or computers. The dependence is gonna keep increasing. I wonder when we'll hearing stories about Amazon servers shut downs inadvertently killing some people.

I'm not sure it's an HN bubble so much as a people under a certain age bubble. Smartphones in the modern sense have only been mainstream for a bit over 10 years. The internet was only mainstream for about 10 years before that. But a lot of people seem to assume that we were hunting woolly mammoths with flint spears before that time.

Yes today's communications are nice but we really didn't need GPS or cell phones to leave the house however primitive paper maps and, yes, some degree of planning seem.

I used a physical map, but especially inside cities how the hell are you supposed to keep your eyes on the road and navigate at the same time? A 30 minute drive can have idk 50 turns. Do you memorize those 50 turns? What about places where the street signs suck?

Lol... no it's quite the opposite and far less distracting to actually navigate by map. You read the map, interpret the relevant bits, hold (in broad strokes) the entire strategy in your mind, and then just drive. Most of the small decisions don't matter. In fact, this greatly improves situational awareness. I don't need to pay attention to navigating every interesection when I just read the map and realize that every road as long as I'm heading roughly east will dump into the big collector road that I need to get to. I remember whether I'm on one side of the freeway, or the other, and I can find my way onto it without any additional assistance.

Interestingly, it's often MORE efficient than using Waze or some navigation app with ADHD that can't see the forest for the trees. I pity those that never learned to see the forest.

This is not a bubble, and driving using physical maps outside of major highways is a nightmare.

Less pleasant than GPS, sure, but by no means a rare skill or impossible to achieve. Would you get the road wrong more often, and have to stop and re-check? Yeah, definitely. Would you still get from A to B in roughly the same time? Yeah, definitely.

For what it's worth, my experience is the opposite. When I read the map and know the whole path ahead of time I'm far more likely to get it right the first time compared to using an app in the city that tells me to turn right 200 feet from the intersection when I really needed that information 200 yards from the intersection. Or sends me on some weird right then left then right thing instead of realizing I can just go straight.

I don't think anyone is disputing that technology makes things easier.

And I've frequently commented that early career me would be incredibly frustrated by the difficulty of accessing information about just about anything were I to be transported back in time.

But it's also the case that we were actually able to travel, communicate, and learn about things in 1990. Yes, it was generally higher friction and relied more on physical artifacts like maps and printed photos but we were able to manage quite well.

>And impossible for the industries that require GPS (uber types).

By uber types, you mean taxi types? The same taxis which have existed in some form for a hundred years before GPS was invented?

When I was younger and lived in California, people had Thomas Guide maps. These were the best. As a pizza delivery dude in college, it made it pretty simple to find a house/apartment. And it didn't require batteries etc. Now it wasn't as easy as an iPhone with maps built in, but it wasn't like it was impossible.

You believe it's not practical to navigate without a GPS?

Watch an old movie-- like the Graduate, or the funny comedy it's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad world, people had maps and asked for directions at gas stations.

There used to be a whole trope of men (especially) not wanting to stop and ask for directions. I'm sure there are younger people who would watch a movie or a TV show where this happens and go "Huh????"

There are also any number of plot points that revolve around not being able to reach someone that also wouldn't make a lot of sense in general today.

I did a cross country drive back in 2008 without GPS and it was great. In fact I would argue by removing all the components of randomness out of your life, you make yourself fragile and your susceptibility to risks much worse.

As an example, I lived in NY for three years and recently when I went there at my cousins place (who is GenZ) our batteries died and we had to walk our way to subway. Despite living there all his life my cousin was having a hard time finding the subway station in Astoria (because he just uses the Map) whereas I could remember from my vague memories of alleys and shops to find out rather quickly.Or how about driving into that diner you have never been instead of looking at Yelp or Google review and finding the best reviewed store? You deny yourself simple pleasures like that when you rely too much on Google or other technologies. I am not saying they don’t have their places but saying without them our quality of life would decline is a fallacy.

I would also argue writing letters and occasional/less frequent long formed phone calls were much better than frequent short form SMS or DMs which most of the time come off as devoid of same level of care or efforts. Keeping in touch with people we know have become such a low effort thing, try writing a letter or making a phone call next time instead of texting and realize how much more effort it required.

> Or stay easily in touch with family living far away?

The flip side is that technology has made it more likely to not live near friends and family, and the accompanying challenges for mental health.

Quality of life is pretty subjective but US life expectancy rose from about 70 to 79 between 1970 and today.

You clearly haven't looked at life expectancy in other places. Life expectancy in other places rose more than in the US. That's what's being discussed here.

Yeah this is akin to saying our GDP growth is X% or inflation is 2% so everything is fine.

The measures for a quality of life I mentioned are something that every American or anyone in a first world country has to bear no matter what. Housing, healthcare, education. All of them have disproportionately gone up while the wage have stagnated. Average middle class family can’t afford to buy a house in most cities now, same with education without 22yr old kids taking on 150k loans. Or healthcare being the mess it is. But sure, everyone has a cheap smartphone and access to socials where they are busy fighting the culture war so everything is fine and dandy right?

While life expectancy going up is certainly not a bad thing, it can be hard to decipher what the quality of life is like in those later years. The life expectancy is going up because of drug/medical advancement, but obesity levels in the USA are at/near all time highs. Often times people are just moving surgery to surgery or drug to drug just to stay alive...

Having access to cheap internet just makes it easier to perform all the additional life administration stuff that people in the 70s didn't have to do but we have to do on top of busting our asses for 40 hours a week to pay off someone else's mortgage.

Comparing utility providers to ensure you're not getting absolutely shafted? Made easier by the internet!

Booking flights? Made easier by the internet!

Having to go through your bank statements to ensure you're not being ripped off by a shady fly-by-night operator? Made easier by the internet!

The causes of decreasing life expectancy are fairly well understood and have little to do with the economy.

We know many young people are dying early deaths of despair. We can make mental health easier to access (there’s a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy just to get pills for well understood mental illnesses).

We can help folks avoid drug overdoses. One piece of low hanging fruit is to make opioids over the counter — that ways people aren’t _accidently_ overdosing on mislabeled fentanyl. And when they do OD, we can make sure they have safe consumption sites and narcan available (this is no different than a bar, where sometimes an ambulance has to rush away someone with severe alcohol poisoning).

We can help folks fight obesity — calorie counts should be included on everything and farm subsidies should be reallocated to healthier foods and low-calorie alcohol sugars instead of HFCS.

And lastly, COVDI-19 has been a big contributor to increased mortality. Anytime the US wants to get serious about the virus we can.

Your point is very strange to me since every single one of the things you listed: deaths of dispair, drug abuse, even obesity are strongly correlated (inversely) with economic health.

The Bay Area is booming, and yet even here this is a problem. There were more drug overdoses than COVID-19 fatalities.

> I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment.

The answer to the question of “are we better of than we were in 19xx” is somewhat subjective.

Take your points: cars are faster/safer/more comfortable/more fuel efficient and houses are bigger and better.

Ok so cars and houses are better today than 1970, but how does that relate to us?

1970 Average salary/median house cost/median rent/new car: $9,870/$17,000/$108/$3,542

2020 Average salary/median house cost/median rent: $56,310/$329,000/$1,463/$45,031

So yes cars are better, houses are bigger now than 1970; however, people and households are less likely to afford these things, and are significantly more indebted now than 1970.

Also there is the elephant in the room of college loans which were essentially non-existent in 1970, but have indebted 10s of millions of kids, nearly 1 million of them default on those loans ever year, financially ruining their lives (good luck getting that car loan, mortgage, credit check on a apartment).

I have a circa 1970 car, and a modern car. The 1970 car is very cheaply built, and is mechanically simple. The quality, complexity, and sheer number of parts of a modern car has increased enormously. Much of that is due to regulation, most every aspect of a car is heavily regulated today. None of this comes for free.

Housing is also more heavily regulated today. Various places have different regulations for hurricanes, earthquakes, and other things.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the reasons the modern car has more parts and is not mechanically simple is not the boogeyman of regulations (although I suppose it could have caused some things like say seat belt alerts and airbags) but rather feature creep in the automotive industry, and computerization of everything.

The people who dislike something will see it everywhere and blame it for everything. Regulation especially is very versatile as a scapegoat.

Cars are much more reliable now than they were in the 1970s, and they can drive more miles.

They have to because services are distributed and it's super expensive and disruptive to sell an owned-residence.

Do you have any sources for that claim? Anecdotally I believe that to be entirely false, but if there are studies you’ve read that back you up I’d love to read them.

Here is one JD Power survey although you'd probably have to dig to find numbers over a longer period of time.

In my experience, it's clearly true overall. In the 1970s, say, you're probably looking at a car in the snow belt lasting 5 years because of rust and 100,000 miles was generally considered very high mileage.

That's because the majority of cars bought in the snow belt during the 70's were American made, and US car quality was terrible during this period.

My family tended to have European cars and they were just as bad.

An example of this is the change to automatic transmission from manual has increased costs. People could have voted with their dollars but manual is (unfortunately) on its way out in America. In a way, they have as it seems vast majority of people buying new cars want automatic but the segment who prefer manual were unable to convince others to buy manual.

This also came with a caveat as automatic is more expensive to manufacture and repair.

I mean it’s just not something most people find appealing. Shifting gears. I’d rather have the car handle that.

What is the pro of manual transmission? I used to have those cars in the EU and thought it was just an annoying extra thing I have to pay attention to when driving.

> What is the pro of manual transmission?

1. enjoyment

2. keeps you awake

3. more reliable

4. more control in stuck or slippery conditions

5. thieves don't know how to drive them

6. the kids are terrified of it and won't ask to borrow it

7. can push start the car

8. can restart the car while moving if the engine stalls

9. can coast

10. can drop the clutch and get off the line faster when drag racing against some teen at the traffic light

11. get to enjoy double clutching and mastering heel-toeing and pretending you're an F1 driver

12. The Cat cannot reach the clutch pedal, frustrating its plans for putting me in the trunk and depositing me in the Kat Fud Factory

13. you can nurse the car home and to the shop with a broken gearbox. With an automatic, it's a tow truck every time

14. the sheer joy of a winding mountain road, a powerful V8, picking the gear for the next turn, managing the traction and engine speed, etc.

The main thing is that manufacturing it is cheaper than automatic and thus the cost to buy it is cheaper. In a longer term, it will also save money on repairs being neeeded.

I've paid more to get a stick :-)

This is a clear example of regulation making cars more complex! In the 70s, there were no crumple zones, airbags, backup cameras, traction control, lighting intensity requirements, or a whole host of other things that are mandated today. Those things do cost money.

That said, this is also a clear shift in consumer demand too - a 1970s $3500 car is going to be a sedan, small, and pretty featureless. Compare that to a $20k Corolla today - which is the same proportion of median income that the $3500 car was in the 70s. It's larger, more reliable, safer, and has a whole bunch more features.

Isn't it possible that the average salary is skewers due to more women entering the work force today than in the past?

I think the important numbers here are the salary and housing cost ones. In 1970 the average house could be purchased for less than 2 years of salary. Today it costs 5.8 years of salary. The cost of housing has sky rocketed relative to income. Housing is the largest bill for the vast majority of people and it eats a massive portion of their take home. Likewise the cost of a vehicle has seen a very large increase percentage wise and very often transportation is the 2nd or 3rd largest cost for a family. So if housing and transportation costs are vastly more expensive then its stands to reason that financial pressure has increased proportionally on most people reducing quality of life. Arguments about 'having cell phones' means we are better off now make no sense. Another thing to consider with that argument is all of those cell phones are built in China where most manufacturing jobs have fled leading to the collapse of an industry that used to fuel the middle class and could comfortably provide a living and sense of pride for so many people.

>think the important numbers here are the salary and housing cost ones. In 1970 the average house could be purchased for less than 2 years of salary. Today it costs 5.8 years of salary.

But no one pays cash for their house. They get a mortgage and so the monthly mortgage payment is (mostly) what matters. Back in the 70s you're paying 10%+ on your mortgage while today it's more like 3.

The reason rates were so high was because of interest. Back then you could expect your income to increase so the interest wasn't as bad as the nominal rate.

That is true, but somehow elides the reality that even if interest rates were zero, you would still end up having to "divert" 5.8 years of median salary to own a median house in 2021, which has significant implications for lots of other aspects of life, particularly but not limited to retirement.

But, again, you're using purchase price which is not how people buy homes. For $100,000 borrowed that's $422 a month at 3% and and $1,264 at 15%. Mortgage payments as a % of income are at historic lows:

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

This is an unusually good time to be a home owner. You can borrow at near 0 or even slightly negative real interest rates and buy an asset that is almost guaranteed to hold/increase in value.

But again, you're missing the point.

People live in homes for their entire lives. If they decide to be owners rather than renters, over the course of their life (actually, typically somewhat less than their whole lives) they will end up mortgage free. This is an important component of most people's retirement planning, in fact.

What's the cost to get to that point? It used to 2x annual salary, it's now nearly 6x annual salary. That's 4 full years of earnings which vanish into owning a home. If you do not reverse mortgage or sell during retirement, you effectively "lose" this money.

>What's the cost to get to that point? It used to 2x annual salary, it's now nearly 6x annual salary.

It's just not. You're not accounting for the interest paid over 30 years of a mortgage.

No, I'm assuming best case: zero interest.

You might be arguing that 1970's cost-as-multiple-of-earnings plus 1970-accumulated-interest exceeds 2020's equivalent. Is that your point?

That "best-case" is unrealistically favorable to the 1970s buyer. In 2020, you can almost get that zero interest mortgage. In the 1970s, you are going to be paying at least 10% on top of that.

Come on. I just purchased my first home in my late 20s and I am one of the very few in my circle to do it. To suggest anyone has a 400 dollar mortgage payment is just ridiculous and untrue. MY rate is 2.78%. I pay $1000 and thats on the very cheap side for where I live. Average is 1700 and up(I live in an isolated area, but an extremely dense/populated state)

Your comment seems disingenuous. You're also discounting the fact that you need a large downpayment (10,000+) to even get a mortgage in the first place. Do you not live in the USA? Housing prices are a real problem for my generation.

Sure, but the same inflation that was driving up mortgage rates was also reducing the real value of the balance of the loan. You can't just look at rates here.

We're talking about affordability here. And my point is that to determine if something is affordable you have to look at monthly payment and not the purchase price.

OK, sure. But inflation has an effect on the monthly payment as well. Assuming stagnant real wages (pay raises pace inflation exactly) if inflation is at 7% but you're paying 10% interest, by the end of a 30-year loan your fixed payment is effectively 8x smaller in real terms than it was at the start of the loan.

In other words, in that environment it was feasible to stretch to buy a home even at a high interest rate, because you knew that every year your fixed payment would decrease significantly as a share of your income.

By that measure you also have to take into account that while you are renting to save up for the down payment you are paying a rent much greater in proportioning to your income. You are making a car payment much greater in proportion to your income. You also very likely are paying a student loan payment that did not exist for the 1970 home buyer. It is much more difficult to save up for even the down payment and more difficult to get approved for a home loan because you already have significant debt which the 1970 home buyer did not. In totality the debt driven economy makes homes less affordable…it’s not just about a monthly payment.

Sure, because no one has 5.8 years of cash on hand, its almost an impossible target for most. 2 years of cash is possible though. Even the ability to put down 6 months of cash would have a massive impact on a loan for 2x your salary and not so much on a loan for ~6x salary.

Not paying attention to the total and only focusing on the monthly payment is how most people get into future crushing debt and very much not a good thing.

27 years to save for a deposit for a house in Auckland

>there is the elephant in the room of college loans which were essentially non-existent in 1970, but have indebted 10s of millions of kids

Also, health care/insurance costs. Growing up as a kid in the 1970s/1980s in a blue collar household, my father's job provided health insurance at a far lower % of salary than is common today and with minimal out of pocket costs for receiving care. Also, retirement. Back then most companies provided defined benefit (pension) plans rather than defined contribution (401K) plans - you put in your years and then you retired at a decent % of final salary for life.

You can't eat a smartphone, you can't sleep in an internet connection, you can't do your nursing job through a computer.

Formal education is more expensive. A balanced diet is harder to get, and more expensive. Housing is more expensive near your work. But gas as well if you live far from it.

Today's people debt is higher, and you can't easily work one job, raise a family, and afford education plus buy a home.

It was more common in the 70'.

Let's not forget securities. Today most people live in some state of constant existential dread, because they know, if they somehow lose the flat, they can't afford a new contract; they can't plan long term, as their job isn't safe (although, that point is in interesting turmoil right now, /r/antiwork and all); they can't work towards a pension plan; ...

The promise of salvation past generations had with their working lifestyle doesn't hold truth anymore. I think that's why we see more "new religions" popping up right now, like conspiracy narratives, new nationalism, "white man identities" (the group without a distinct identity in the past; their self-efficacy experiences seem to be in decline, too), the MLM-fantasy of self-employment/all-in hacks/dire fight for "untapped markets" (podcasts, porn, stock market ...).

Late stage capitalism.

Oh come on. People were literally starving in the US in the 60s-70s. Not really something that is easy to happen nowadays, even if it is difficult to get a balanced diet.

One in 9 people in the US suffers from food insecurity (not having regular access to adequate meals). During the height of the disruptions from the pandemic last year, one in 4 households experienced food insecurity.

Sources:

https://sail.gmu.edu/program/hunger-banquet-2021/hunger https://www.npr.org/2020/09/27/912486921/food-insecurity-in-...

Why are you bringing up "food insecurity" rather than deaths by starvation which is an objective measure of food shortness, and what the person you replied to is talking about?

How many people starve to death in the United States?

What good is new tech if you cannot afford to buy a house or a new'ish car for the minimum wage, even if you live frugal and save?

Are metaverse gonna replace lack of owning a house (and travel) soon? /s

Don't even jest, I heard something similar told at work without the /s part.

That sounds similar to The Matrix.

Maybe you could just live in a coffin and jack into a more spacious metaverse simulation of an apartment /s

lol, this will actually happen.

An apartment that comes with total surveillance. Like Alexa on steroids. How do we get off this train?

You just described japan.

For example, it lets you live in a less expensive city and work remotely wherever you want.

Also it allows you to learn and raise your earning potential.

Finally modern transportation options less expensive than cars like e-bikes and e-scooters allow you to commute easier.

Genuinely curious, are you or were you lower class in America?

Sure, some people can benefit from remote work. But remote work is also not typically minimum wage. And to access those higher wage jobs, you’ll certainly need access to capital to invest in education.

Have you considered using an e-bike in the US? This could only be feasible in a minority of situations…

It sounds like a techie meme of what life could be, but is certainly not.

I am not American. I come from zero money but lucked out with a stable family that highly valued education. They sacrificed a lot for it but they strongly believed that you can improve your lot in life through hard work and perseverance.

I share those believes and am living proof they work.

Thus funneling more wealth to the already wealthy. That's the point. The average is okay but the distribution of wealth is messed up.

90% of the US you would get killed on your commute if you tried to use an e-bike or e-scooter.

I saaw that happening in Budapest. Every young person has a new iPhone and wearing new sneakers, but living with parents.

yeah and most of those parents have been refinancing their homes to support their spoiled children. That is going to end real soon and many of those kids are going to witness their parents lose their homes and become impoverished due to their lazy yet extravagant lifestyles.

It's not about spoiled children, I see janitors walking around with 800 euro phones here. It's just a psychological way for low earning people to 'keep up with the Kardashians'. AS they can't buy cars or houses they buy gadgets.

It’s amusing to me to contemplate that I work in tech and buy 1-2 year old iPhones for $300-500. I’m glad so many people have to have the very latest and so recycle great tech for 50+% discounts.

So how is the $50 per month savings is going to help you buy that $1M home?

I saw this in Myanmar. There were people living in mud huts but they had smartphones.

I also had the same thought - it's the one luxury they can actually afford if they save up.

I dont really get how people can look at that and think that these people are better off than a middle class 1950s US family. It's insane.

Phones are also not expensive unless you want them to be. You can get a great phone for any use for about $100 used. Streaming, playing Fortnite, productivity tasks. Any 5 year old phone can handle all that. It’s very cost efficient to get free entertainment, communication, portability

$100 might be tough to get, but my Moto G Power was $200, and I don't feel it's limited in any way.

Heck, with the SD card slot I can film terabytes worth of videos and not worry about storage ever, and it lasts 2 days on a single charge.

That said, the extra $400 worth of difference between that and an iPhone 12 won't exactly turn a millionaire into a pauper. If $200 is the cost of necessity, then $400 expense on top of it to feel good for whatever reason is pretty damn low as far as spending goes.

It's less than furniture, less than expensive watches, less than anything close to luxury clothing (or even solid quality winter gear). $400 is a decent bicycle.

I don't get why people care so much about other people buying expensive things that they themselves wouldn't buy.

I mean alright but even if you pay $1,200 every other year for a new phone... that was never enough to cover rent anyway.

Some people are probably blowing $1,200 a month on stuff they don't need... but it certainly isn't the source of widespread income inequality.

Besides, given how necessary cell phones are now, perhaps especially for the low-income, spending a little more for one that works really well and is very reliable isn't crazy.

The statement was that most Americans are significantly worse off now than [their equivalents in] the 1970s. Do you claim that most Americans fit your description of someone living on minimum wage or are you trying to argue against a point I wasn’t trying to make?

I’m not saying there aren’t problems but even someone with a very low income who is forced (by American life) to run a car for a lot of their money is unlikely to be using a car from the 70s (50 years old) and more likely to use something from the 90s or 00s less safe and efficient than cars of today but still better than cars of the 70s.

Many people have a misguided belief that home ownership was easy in the 70s, 80s or even the 90s. Yes the prices were lower and maybe the cost/average income ratio was lower but I can attest to the fact that it was no easy feat even back then.

Plenty of people lost their homes, renters had far less rights and although when looking at things through averages seems to indicate a better off middle class, the wages of the top 10% middle class (Mostly Unionized) were propping up a huge amount of the middle class that were grinding it out living paycheck to paycheck with none of the social safety nets currently in place.

I find it incredulous that so many people are blind to what is coming in the next few years, there is a huge sense of entitlement and victimhood based on some idea that the world was easier back then. We are coming out of what I consider almost 35 years of prosperity resultant from "Winning" the cold war but a reconning is right around the corner.

I don't expect many to take my advise but if I was in debt, renting a home and unemployed, I would stop bitching about minimum wage and would be finding a job real fast, the days of help wanted signs in every window are about to end.

>> maybe the cost/average income ratio was lower

There’s no maybe about it. In the 70s, average house sale price was 4x the average salary. Today it’s 8x.

How many lattes would you need to have skipped to have bought two homes at the time you bought your first? How many holidays would you have needed to skip to pay two mortgages while you were paying one?

That is the scenario - well except todays generation would only have one house at the end of the day, not two.

My house is currently valued at 100K USD that is not an unreachable goal. It might not be right next to your favorite coffee shop but that just one of the sacrifices You make when You want to own a home.

BTW in the 70s we didn't have lattes, it was just plain old coffee and what is this holiday's thing You are talking about? It sounds like something the privileged think they are entitled to.

Of course it wasn't 'easy' to make mortgage payments back then. Mr Market always prices monthly outgoings for housing to some % of typical income.

The difference is those who managed to get on the property ladder in between the 70s and 90s saw falling rates and their LTV ratios being crushed as property prices sawed. Today many of those people live in 7 figure homes in the middle of prime city centers, or bought second properties and became landlords, intentionally or accidentally.

Young people today face the opposite. Just like stock market multiples, housing is at the highest the market can bare. Either we embrace inflation and wages rise, or interest rates rise, the market crashes, and millions upon millions of people end up underwater.

>>>Today many of those people live in 7 figure homes in the middle of prime city centers.

Many of those people live in their same homes, the city grew up around them. At risk of making a generalization, too many young people feel they should get to start at the top. People who bought homes in the 70s spent a lifetime accumulating their wealth, many of them have supported two generations of children and are still working to support the next generation. It is much easier to just throw up your hands and cry out "The World is Unfair". A choice is made to just give up rather put in the hard work required to succeed, that choice is about to go away along with the opportunities that todays youth have squandered.

Hard times are right around the corner, the good news is that housing prices are going to come down. The bad news is it won't make a difference to the people complaining about not being able to afford them as the cost/wage ratio means nothing when You don't have a job.

> too many young people feel they should get to start at the top.

I wouldn't call a dual income couple in their mid 30s paying >40% of take-home pay for a 2 bedroom flat "the top", but ok.

I guess my parents who started with a 3 bed family home on a single blue-collar income started at the fucking apex.

So what You are saying is You and your partner are Dual Income No Kids or (D.I.N.K.s) and still struggling to get by? Now is the time to make some changes, You probably both have cell phone contracts totaling over $100 USD per month, chances are there is a just as much going out in other digital subscriptions, maybe You even have that stuff that makes your toilet water blue...literally flushing money away.

IDK your situation but have heard the same excuses for a long time. You have the ability to make changes before You get tied down with responsibilities like kids and debt, make the choice to change your lifestyle now before that choice is made for You.

It's a nice fantasy, but you need to brush up on Amdahl's law and apply it to saving. Our rent is currently 25% of our joint take home pay. It's contractually tied to inflation and goes up every year. Housing goes to 40-50% if we buy, but half of that will be equity and the other half at least won't be making my landlord, who owns at least a dozen properties, even wealthier.

And we're not DINKs by choice. We want kids.

I put 50% of my personal take-home salary in to savings/investments and have been doing so for 3 years. We have decided not go give more than token gifts this Christmas as we really want to reach our spring savings goal.

Meanwhile house prices have gone up 10-15% over the last year. I earn good money but if it's this tough for me then believe me when I say it's fucking hopeless for most people my age.

I've also heard this bullshit before from older generations, including my parents. Sure they faced hardships. Different kinds of hardships. Unemployment. Inflation. High interest rates...but don't think people have it any easier today because they're they spend $30/mo on a phone contract. Spending $30/mo on Netflix and Disney+ today is like spending $4/mo on whatever crap people wasted money on in the 1970s. They did it too.

>>>I've also heard this bullshit before from older generations, including my parents.

Mark those words my friend...There is truth in them and one day not too long from now that same BS will be coming out of your mouth, I guarantee it!

On a side note, put some of your savings into physical precious metals it may very well be the only thing that will allow You to prosper in the next decade.

This reminds me of people from a certain generation who say "You'll be more conservative as you get older!" which happened to them because they accrued wealth and assets and (somewhat naturally) want to protect them.

But when you can't accrue wealth or assets (for all of the reasons other posters have listed above), you probably don't end up becoming more conservative as you get older. Quite the opposite.

You're trying to tell us the rules for a game that no longer exists in the way you played it

Yep. I'm pushing 50, and over the last 20 years, I've gone from being a progressive liberal to a Marxist-Leninist. You don't get more conservative as you get older, you get more conservative as you get wealthier.

> Either we embrace inflation and wages rise

But then, probably, so would assets (stocks and real estate). I don't see an easy way out of this mess...

One of the key issues is around deposits for homes.

When prices are lower, so are deposits. When they're consistently increasing for long periods (with low/no wage growth to boot), deposits become impossible to achieve because price growth outstrips the ability to save.

What you end up with is a large class of renters who can clearly service a mortgage (they service their landlords) but cannot save for a deposit.

Was it a walk in the park in the 70s and 80s? No. But it was possible for a great majority of people. These days, without help for a deposit, you're screwed as an "average" worker in a population centre.

Is it reasonable to expect that a minimum wage earner should be able to afford to buy a house and a newish car? Were minimum wage earners doing that in 1970?

Yes they were

The minimum wage went up to $1.45/hr in Feb, 1970. 2000 hours of that would be $2900. I used the following assumptions: 7.5% fixed-30, median house $17K, down payment of 20%. That was unaffordable by a factor of almost 2x.

The house that seemed affordable with no car payment was a little over $9K (down payment of $1800). Adding in a $50/mo car payment took the affordable house down to a little over $8K, less than half the price of the median home in 1970.

Was there a minimum wage worker sometime in 1970 who bought a house and a newish car? I'm sure there was. Was it typical to do so? I don't think so.

Refs: http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/pmms30.html , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29590190 , https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/new-house-cal... (I used a 10x multiplier, so I modeled in the calculator someone making $14.50/hr, a median house of $170K rather than $17K, etc, and then divided them by 10 to cite the figures above.)

If I apply the same calculation today, on a minimum wage of $7.25…

  Wage: $7.25/h
  per-month affordable: $362.50
  median home price: $374,900
  3.519% fixed, 30-yr
  20% down
  required monthly payment -> $1,350

which is unaffordable by a factor of almost 4x.

In fairness, the comment chain you're responding to is talking about the thing you're responding to in your comment, but I think the increase in unaffordability at the minimum wage still speaks to the problem: while it wasn't likely to allow home ownership in the past, but it's even less possible now, and that translates up into the higher wages where people then might have afforded a home, but cannot now.

Plenty of maps have been drawn to show that minimum wage can't even afford to rent median 1-bed apartments.

I agree that it’s gotten worse; I just think people underestimate how much it has always sucked to be among the lowest earning households.

You can look at these retired 70-something boomers driving nice cars, owning a house, and taking a couple trips a year and assume they lived on Easy Street their whole lives when in fact they were probably struggling to pay bills 40 and 50 years ago as well.

Yes it is.

Why should the minimum wage not provide a sufficiently secure life for the worker?

I say this all the time: if you can't afford to pay your workers a living wage you can't afford to be in business.

Because minimum wage job is supposed to be temporary. You do it right after high school, for couple years, before you decide on what you want your "real" job to be. Or you do it part time to pay your expenses while attending college. No minimum wage work should be something you do your whole life.

I wonder: what's the average age of a worker whose wages would increase if the federal minimum wage increased to $15/hr? There's "supposed" and then there's what's actually happening. I suspect most people in those jobs are not the people you're saying should be doing them.

The average minimum wage worker is 35. 80% of minimum wage workers are over 20. 56% are women, 28% have children. On average, minimum wage workers earn half of their family's income.

Source: Economic Policy Institute

https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-workers-older-88-percen...

> Because minimum wage job is supposed to be temporary.

Historically, this is flat-out wrong. It's a lie. It's just a new talking point invented by corporations to convince the population to vote against minimum wage increases.

This is nothing but a platitude that attempts to shame businesses for not meeting some idealistic vision of how the world ought to be.

There's no hard rules about what wages should or should not be, as with any other market price. A business will pay however much they need to attract and keep the labor they need. If no one wants to work for them they need to increase the wages they offer, which may in turn result in higher prices for customers which is also an undesirable outcome. If what they provide is of enough value that customers will continue to pay for it then the higher costs can be absorbed, if they don't, they will fail. If they can't attract workers they will likely also fail. Delivering value at prices people are willing to pay while still covering costs is ultimately what keeps a business in business.

I sometimes wonder if minimum wages are a net benefit at all as it creates several distortions. Some laborers aren't worth paying a minimum wage, they wind up earning nothing from not having work instead of what their true worth is and being able to build up skills. I think it could also remove some negotiating power from laborers. Businesses can peg their wages at the minimum and balk at those asking for raises, they pay the legally mandated price for that tier of work after all. Try to find a new job and you would also find other businesses doing the same, not paying an iota more than legally necessary instead of a more fluid labor market with people switching jobs for marginal gains, driving wages up. What may more naturally be a range of prices, both higher and lower, gets compressed to the minimum, unless that minimum is so low as to not have any effect on wages at all because no one would willingly work at that price.

> some idealistic vision of how the world ought to be

Yeah, I think it's a tragedy that we have constructed a society where everyone doesn't have basic needs met. I think it's a bigger tragedy that the alternative to the current system is considered idealistic. You don't have to agree with me, but if nobody talks about the ways that things could be, not the way that they are, then things will never change.

I'm not sure I follow your last paragraph. Are you suggesting that minimum wages are bad because it sets a minimum for employers to pay as though without a minimum wage they would pay a rate more in line with value? If folks earning a minimum wage today, in a world with a minimum wage, can't afford basic living expenses, would you expect more people to afford basic living expenses without a minimum wage? If so, can you justify that? If not, what are you optimizing for?

I don't have a strong position either way on exactly what the best minimum wage is, but I think it's clear that there are people who have skills and abilities in line with creating maybe $10, $12, or $15 per hour of value for a business. If you make it illegal for an employer to employ them at a rate where it's profitable, you're either forcing them to be out of work, to accept a quiltwork of hours ("we will only employ you for 2 hours at lunch and 3 hours of dinner rush"), to be in a precarious situation at work, or to find an employer willing to dress charity up in work clothes and lose money by employing them. I don't know how common it is, but I'm quite certain that I know people (in the sense that I can name them) who fall into that category.

I think substantial increases in the minimum wages force those people into a lottery where some are made better off and others are made worse off, but where the ones made worse off are made much worse off (out of work, higher barrier than today to finding work, everyone around them has more money and everything is more expensive than today).

Yeah, I think this speaks to a much broader problem with how we attribute value in our society.

Monetary value has no bearing on actual value. For example, a smartphone is only $1000 because some people were paid $0 to produce it. Did those people not produce value? Take a fast food hamburger, it only costs $1 because it's not real meat (mostly), and the person who heated it up is being paid a wage with which they cannot afford reasonable housing and healthy food.

Monetary value is the value to the business, though. If Pat can only serve enough customers to create $10 in value (above COGS) that customers are willing to pay for, a business can't pay Pat $15 for that work on a sustainable basis.

My objection to the parent post is the notion that a business which can't pay a living wage shouldn't be in business. It insinuates that businesses should be responsible for paying a living wage out of some sense of it being morally right, which is ignorant of how economics operates. Wanting people to be able to meet basic needs and have some financial security is, I believe, universally desirable. Please do think that I don't want this as well. To expect it to come via altruism is idealistic.

> Are you suggesting that minimum wages are bad because it sets a minimum for employers to pay as though without a minimum wage they would pay a rate more in line with value?

Yes, that's basically what I'm saying. Most literature focuses on people being priced out of the labor market (see https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/negative-effects-minimu..., for one such analysis).

I'm also suggesting there could be other effects due to loss of agency over one's labor price, similar to how collusion of employers to fix wages harms employees. Maybe someone has studied it, maybe not.

>If folks earning a minimum wage today, in a world with a minimum wage, can't afford basic living expenses, would you expect more people to afford basic living expenses without a minimum wage?

Ultimately prices are fluid based on what people can afford, especially so for local markets like housing. If minimum wages increase one would expect increased housing prices as those prices were set in line with what people could afford. If they make more, now they can afford to pay more. If you were making marginally above minimum wage you now also want an increase to protect your increased buying power.

W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research found that modest minimum wage increases have minimal affect on prices increases while larger ones can create price increases. This makes intuitive sense, based on market theory. https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&htt...

With no minimum wage, you create a race to the bottom on wages in jobs that are currently minimum wage. No matter how little you pay, you'll find someone who is so desperate for scraps that they'll accept less.

And with that, you create a drop in the standard of living, where even having your own bedroom is considered a luxury.

> Some laborers aren't worth paying a minimum wage, they wind up earning nothing from not having work instead of what their true worth is and being able to build up skills.

No, what happens then is they work 3 jobs to survive and die an early death.

> I think it could also remove some negotiating power from laborers. Businesses can peg their wages at the minimum and balk at those asking for raises, they pay the legally mandated price for that tier of work after all.

That makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever, that someone would make MORE money if there wasn't a legal minimum? What?

Laborers don't have negotiating power in the bottom end. As I said above, there are enough desperate people to create a race to the bottom. If you eliminate the minimum wage, then you're not giving them leverage, you're just creating more desperate people.

My grandparents had my mom at 17 in 1965, were disowned by their parents, and bought a house at 19 on a single carpenter's apprentice salary. They bought a new car a couple years later.

My grandmother only started working part-time ~1980 as things started getting harder to afford on a single salary.

I think about this a lot because even with two people working full time we couldn't afford a house (in the same city) until we were in our late 20s, without a child. Still have never owned a new car.

Carpenter's apprentices look to make around double the federal minimum wage today, which checks out that they could afford a house in the mid 60s. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593398

Alright but I've been making quadruple the federal minimum wage...

If you value material possessions only then your right.

However, the past generations in my family were able to have one working parent and still provide for the family.

I have a wonderful “tech job” and still need my wife to work fill time so we can raise our two kids and we still can’t purchase a house.

Anecdotally, I don’t understand how we are better off, but you are correct; the tvs are much higher resolution in 2021.

> Compared to the 70s, a new car is faster, safer, more comfortable, and more fuel efficient. Similarly, most houses are bigger and better in America today.

What good does this do to someone with nowhere to live and that can't drive to work?

Technology has been advancing yes. And in some cases it enabled a group of people, like us, to become more independent/free. Many of us literally own their means of production, and the market is in the favor of labor. For now.

But let’s not pretend like that’s true for everyone, nor that technology is a panacea for social and economic problems.

> most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s

  > I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment.

In terms of mental health, job security, stability (e.g marriage/divorce rates) they may very well be worse off.

Physical health as well. Obesity has exploded since the 1970s. Normal weight people are already a minority.

Divorce rates and abortions exploded in the 70s and have been coming down since then

It’s also hard to measure environmental factors like air quality is better now than in the 70s (thanks unleaded gas).

The challenge is when specific areas that are worse off (wages) are lumped together with a general negativity (we’re worse off).

I wish there were better metrics, but at least we have tools like CPI. It’s just so tempting to use these data for the wrong analyses and conclusions.

There’s a lot of pitfalls measuring inflation in general especially when you add tech to the mix.

Technology is known to be deflationary; getting faster and cheaper over time.

This is how some fast food prices have been mostly staying the same; though even here you sometimes see shrinkflation.

It’s unfortunate that there’s so much politics around the inflation numbers, things that are deflationary are deliberately used to reduce the inflation numbers.

If something is too inflationary it either stops being measured or new ways of measuring are introduced that reduces the numbers.

I think it's more useful to compare work requirements. In the 1970s, a family could be supported by a single earner. A house, a car, and college for the kids assuming they had decent grades. Today, that's largely impossible for the majority of Americans. Even with two incomes, (and the subsequent lower quality of life for any kids in the family), it's a huge challenge.

>I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment.

What you think of this graph? https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

Because by my reading, it looks like the average American is not reaping the gains of this country's GDP output by a significant margin.

You don't even need to compare to tech that didn't exist.

How many projects apartments from 1970 would you have to combine to assemble a full suite of working appliances and utilities. Now run that same test for the rural shacks and early mobile homes. How many of those people owned cars, a decent set of seasonally appropriate clothing, got their nails done, ate fresh produce out of season, etc. etc. etc?

Now run that comparison for 2021.

We're a fuckton richer. But proportional increases in the amount of our income sapped by shelter, education and medical care have more or less cancelled out all the gains in material wealth.

> How much did an internet connection cost in the 1970s? What about a computer? What about a smartphone? These modern technologies make peoples lives much better

Completely ridiculous. I don't need internet or smartphones to live and they don't make my life better. I need food, shelter, and some transportation, and the point is: these things have become much more difficult to afford each year since 1970.

We are much worse off when measuring the amount of time it takes to hit milestones.

At what age are people moving out, having children, buying a home, retirement?

The age for all of this has gone up massively. Because it takes much longer to earn enough money to afford to do these things.

did you know that in the 70s no matter how poor you were you could make a phone call for just ten cents even if your cell phone was out of power!

>and more fuel efficient

more fuel efficient is only of interest if you are talking about how much it costs to run a car. Cars are more fuel efficient now than they were in the 1970s because it costs so much more to run them.

Funny enough of course that increase in prices started in the 1970s.

https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-and-...

Most working class people who own a car are interested in running that car and the associated costs. (It’s not likely a museum piece for them.)

> These modern technologies make peoples lives much better

That's true in some ways, but in other ways these technologies make our lives better in the same way Heroin does.

> Compared to the 70s, a new car is faster, safer, more comfortable, and more fuel efficient. Similarly, most houses are bigger and better in America today.

Do you think these things are tied to meaningful improvements to people's overall happiness, mental and physical health, and well being?

Absolutely yes. I'm happier because my bathroom has two sinks so my wife and I can get ready for work at the same time. I'm happier because my house has more than one toilet so that I don't have to wait because someone is sitting on the only available toilet. I'm happier because my car has air conditioning. I'll absolutely be happier if an airbag saves my life, and infinitely happier than that if one saves my wife's life or my kid's life.

Yes. Technology and wealth makes our lives better and makes us happier. Yes.

> I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment.

It is not OBVIOUSLY false.

Look at education costs relative to the cost of living. Consider that your only recourse to a decent salary is through higher education, since the middle class union job is dead (and REALLY dead for someone young since all the ones that do exist are held by older people that sold out the younger generation in successive union negotiations).

You really think housing is cheaper or better now? I'm assuming you live in silicon valley. The only thing built is "bigger and better" because that is MORE EXPENSIVE and people have to PAY MORE for it. Nobody builds 'affordable housing' which you are obliquely criticizing people for not choosing. There is no choice for 'affordable housing': all of it that exists is occupied. That's why there is a housing shortage and rental shortage in practically every major urban market.

And then there is health care...

Food has dropped in quality even if one argues it has maintained cost parity.

Jobs are far worse that they used to be. Like food, the number of jobs is cooked to seem the same, but the quality of the job is far worse, which leads me to...

A great deal of consumer cost advantages have been due to globalization/arbitrage of foreign near-slave-labor. The cost of better consumer goods is destruction of the middle class and US manufacturing.

All the major milestones of the happy capitalist worker's lifetime are all very very very much more expensive or worse.

All of these structural degradations to the US are being propped over with financing shenanigans such as low interest rates. The Pandemic is all that on steroids.

All those shenanigans are sensitive to disruption. COVID is pushing our currency manipulation/control to the brink.

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