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Comment by prottog | Hacker News Reader

There's a similar disconnect in expectations of outcomes. The same days when people "wanted" overtime were the days where people expected to get ahead by busting their asses; sure, you could work short hours, play with your kids, have time to develop a hobby, but then you wouldn't become wealthy.

That option is still there today, to work only enough to sustain oneself at a lowered standard. But it seems that there is a part of the millennial/gen-Z culture that expects ass-busting outcomes without the busting of the ass.

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The ratio of power between labor and capital has swung hard toward capital over the past 30 years.

I think the number of people who become "wealthy" due to salary income alone is probably small and shrinking. You used to be able to buy a house in 12 months instead of 18 months if you worked overtime. Todays economics make it so working overtime lets you buy a house in 13 years instead of 17 years.

> You used to be able to buy a house in 12 months instead of 18 months if you worked overtime. Todays economics make it so working overtime lets you buy a house in 13 years instead of 17 years.

Actually, if 50 years ago you used to be able to pay for a house in 18 months, today you should be able to pay for a house in ~30 months: https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco.... You're thinking of a time that didn't exist, perhaps outside of when people were granted plots of land and built their own houses on it.

Blame the Fed and idiotic policies at every level for that, anyway; the economics of housing is totally skewed by artificial scarcity on one hand and asset inflation on the other.

I don't disagree that capital has more power now due to the effects of technology, but I also believe that culture has been shaping away from the idea that we are masters of our fate; both due to technology, which becomes increasingly harder for laypeople to understand as it gets more advanced, and regulation forced by that technological advance, where the universe of economic activity one can engage in without needing the state's permission is getting smaller and smaller. Not to mention all the effects that social media has on envy.

Perhaps I sound like I'm repeating the age-old mantra of the old complaining that the young are ruining the country ;-) you decide.

Yeah, my napkin math is probably superlative. The biggest factor is certainly housing - 1950s homes that cost $20k would easily cost 50x that today with similar lot size, layout and location. I think perspectives on what housing is 'comparable' are pretty squishy.

Inflation only accounts for 12x since 1950.

I think "median' might be adding some error to your analysis: I suspect skilled trades were probably earning more relative to median in 1950 than today's skilled trades earn relative to today's median. But wasn't able to find good historical numbers with a quick search.

Here is the bls publication "Union Wages and Hours: Building Trades" from 1950: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/bls/bl...

Compared to the median tradesmen salary it has not kept up to inflation: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472061.htm

But to be quite honest, those are exact comparisons, but it was what I found in like 5 minutes.

> Blame the Fed and idiotic policies at every level for that, anyway;

Many of these policies were voted in at the local level by the populace. It isn't the government's fault if every city counsel member who supports upzoning loses their next election.

Sounds like you're blaming the fed and idiotic policies...all of which were put in place by old people. ;-)

Well the old installed the fed and regulated the housing market. Will probably take violence to fix.

It's the other way around. Younger generations have discovered that the busting of the ass in and of itself does not lead to financial comfort or stability. At least going to college and working an office job kind of still holds that promise. Why stand 10 hours a day at a machine, when I can work 7 at my desk for better pay and better long-term prospects?

Exactly this. Even in a white collar environment, busting ass does not really provide good returns.

Living within your means leads to financial comfort and stability, no matter what you make. Millionaire next door etc

Sounds like the old avocado toast and lattes argument.

> ass-busting outcomes without the busting of the ass.

Perhaps. But one only needs to look up to the original post to see that is not what we're talking about here. Busting of the ass for $25-30/hr plus overtime...not exactly getting wealthy here.

I don't know where GP's old employer was located, but it sounds like it's in a low cost-of-living area, the kind where homes can be had for under $100k. Earn $50-60k a year, pay off your house in maybe ten years instead of thirty, save a little each month and invest and let it compound over time; at the end you could have enough for a comfortable retirement and maybe even have some left over to hand down to your children.

It's not "fly to Paris on a whim"-level wealthy, but it sounds like a life well lived to me. What is your definition of wealthy?

Certainly nobody can reasonably conclude that "working long hours to live a basic life in an extremely low cost of living area" is "wealthy".

We can all agree that we have different definitions of wealthy. But I think we can also all agree that your description of that life, which is maybe "well-lived", is not one of wealth in the context of this discussion. It is certainly not an "ass-busting outcome".

OK, I grant that the life I described is perhaps not aspirational for anybody born and raised in a first-world country in the last 30 years or so. (I know many from other backgrounds whose idea of unimaginable wealth is exactly that.) But if it's not an ass-busting outcome, would you say it's a middling outcome? Or the most minimal outcome that anyone should have, regardless of how hard they work?

What makes you say that this middle-class life where you own your home free and clear and have time and money for the occasional indulgences of life is a "basic" one? In other words, why is your bar calibrated so high?

Statistically it is maybe a median level outcome. Maybe. If you’re okay with your kids going to the worst public schools, living in an area with little to no amenities, shopping thrift stores, etc as a trade off to owning your home outright (which itself as a goal is dubious anyhow).

And yea obviously wealth is relative. But to anyone accustomed to living in a reasonably developed country what you’re describing is not wealthy. We both know this. Not sure why you continue doubling down.

I'm doubling down because you haven't offered an explanation of what your counterfactual is. As best as I can guess, are implying that were something to be different, the outcomes will be different, whether that is that people who bust their ass will become truly wealthy (which again, you have not defined) or perhaps that people who don't bust their ass will also be better off.

I want to know what that something is, in what way it should be different, and why you think that difference will lead to the difference in outcomes you anticipate.

I’m not sure why you could possibly want all of that information from me.

My original response was about how “kids these days” expect “ass busting results without the ass busting”, and I was pointing out that that is definitely not the case with OP’s job offer of $25-30/hr plus overtime, which is the exact opposite…ass busting without the results.

But if you must, Let’s say somewhere in the top 50% of asset holders is a reasonable line for “wealth”. Do with that whatever you like.

According to the Federal Reserve[0], the median household net worth (that is, the assets that a family holds minus its liabilities) in the US is $122k, which means that owning free and clear even a modest home in a modest area -- like in the life I've described -- would already put you at the 50th percentile or above.

Among households that hold at least one asset, to filter out those who don't own anything, the median sits at $228k. Again, that's a nice home in a modest area or a modest home in a nice area, even before the recent real estate craze. Or from another perspective, someone making $60k a year (full-time employment at $25-30 an hour with no raises ever, which is an unreasonable assumption) who works for 40 years and manages a slightly above-average (remember, ass-busting) savings rate[1] of 10% will have that by the end of their career. We can conservatively assume that by investing their savings in a broad-market index fund they can at least match inflation.

Which is to say, entering the top 50% of asset holders from below is by no means unreasonable even for someone who isn't making a cushy $400k a year working at a FAANG. It just won't be overnight and it will take some amount of busting ass.

Your perception of how wealthy the median person (or asset-holder) is may be skewed by what you observe in a presumably very wealthy location.

[0]: https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf20.pdf

[1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT

I said "somewhere in the top 50%", not 50th percentile. I was being purposefully vague so that you wouldn't do exactly what you have done and try to pick apart whatever definition of wealth was brought forward. If you like, you can pretend that I said "90th" percentile exactly is the exact demarcation of wealth. Or take 50% as the mean and it's ~$750k net worth. Or take a definition of "poll 1,000 randomly selected Americans if your example is a wealthy person and take the majority vote". Go ahead and take those down also, if that's how you'd like to spend your time.

Even the "$100k" house your example uses does not get you to the median (you don't get to casually add 20%+ to the house value just to get to the median). And you're, again, still living in a tiny house in the poorest areas with the worst amenities, the worst healthcare, the worst education, the worst economic prospects for your children, the worst obesity, the worst of the opioid epidemic, etc, effectively zero disposable income, zero college savings, zero travel, crappy old used cars, thrift shop clothing, pinching every penny just to pay down your mortgage quickly and get to the 40-45th percentile of wealth statistically. Worth it? Not for me.

It's a perfectly "fine" life, if that's what you want. It does not meet a reasonable definition of wealth in the US.

You can stop any time.

I can tell you: $50-60k is roughly how much I and other software engineers over here in Eastern EU make, enjoying both low costs of living and low taxes(a privilege granted to those the government wants to keep from moving to the west), and that is still not considered wealthy in this region.

Granted, for the equivalent of $100k you could maybe erect a 1100sq ft house at best, but that's because prices exploded due to the pandemic and Russian invasion.

I don't know where you live but in my poor as hell area (12 an hour is considered decent pay), $100K doesn't really get you that much anymore. That is like the bare minimum for a lot in the trees and a small and poorly insulated 2 bedroom house.

15 years ago it might not have been so bad. But now you would get a run down shack on a tiny plot of land and you are living in a poor as hell area deep in the sticks where the nearest store besides walmart or dollar tree is minimum 60 miles away and your only choice for internet is 4G wireless that is shoddy going through all the trees.

I'm in a midsize city in the Gulf Coast region. Not exactly the boonies (though that is very accessible from where I am), and not exactly a bustling metro. One can buy a serviceable house under $100k in a not-so-great part of town. $12 an hour is a little under what people would consider decent pay here.

Your area seems to have a particularly disadvantaged income to home value ratio. Is there some other factor involved? From what I understand parts of Montana, for example, are like that, where there is no economic base to support higher wages but nonetheless the natural beauty of the area drives up home prices from out-of-town buying and whatnot.

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