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Comment by USB5 | Hacker News Reader

American wages have been stagnated for over 30 years.

Everything I ever saw points to rising real wages over spans larger than 20 years. e.g., https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N (there's quite the dip after 2008). Could you provide a source?

Different numbers, different stories.

https://www.factcheck.org/2019/06/are-wages-rising-or-flat/ shows "average weekly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees" as being about the same now as 1970. (See also https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000031 and expand the range starting from 1964.)

Note also that 1970 was a peak. Pick 1990 and things are going well.

Or as https://www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/economic-fact/th... puts it "After adjusting for inflation, wages are only 10 percent higher in 2017 than they were in 1973, with annual real wage growth just below 0.2 percent.1 The U.S. economy has experienced long-term real wage stagnation and a persistent lack of economic progress for many workers." with footnote 1 saying "Cumulative real wage growth is sensitive to the particular method of inflation adjustment. Some researchers use the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) deflator, which implies even lower real wage growth, or the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) deflator, which implies higher real wage growth (Bivens and Mishel 2015; Sacerdote 2017)."

Still, wages haven't matched productivity increases. https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

> Starting in the late 1970s policymakers began dismantling all the policy bulwarks helping to ensure that typical workers’ wages grew with productivity. Excess unemployment was tolerated to keep any chance of inflation in check. Raises in the federal minimum wage became smaller and rarer. Labor law failed to keep pace with growing employer hostility toward unions. Tax rates on top incomes were lowered. And anti-worker deregulatory pushes—from the deregulation of the trucking and airline industries to the retreat of anti-trust policy to the dismantling of financial regulations and more—succeeded again and again.

Contrast it to GDP: https://wtfhappenedin1971home.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/wa...

Or labors share of the economy: https://wtfhappenedin1971home.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/ei...

50% wage share? I have heard that neoclassical economists still use 0.7 and when you tell them that this is wrong or doesn't work across countries (e.g. you've been cherry picking the data) they ignore you or treat you as some kind of crank.

I thought GDP wasn't a real measure? Are we selectively choosing when and if GDP is a real measure, but specifically only when it's beneficial to the side I am arguing for?

Yet if you take into account welfare payments and programs, total income growth has been large. If you make 20K a year, you get about 40K of additional government welfare. If you make 45k a year, you get zero.

For a vast number of Americans, increasing wage is a bad thing.

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-warped-welfare-syste...

I don't think anyone expected anything different but the housing and childcare benefits basically account for 80% of the welfare trap.

Which make it even more effective as a trap. If working more or increasing salary means losing your housing and childcare, it is a non-starter.

Regardless of which side of the political aisle one is on, this is one reason why UBI/a negative income tax should draw attention. I don’t know if it is the best solution, but it would empower those on welfare today by allowing them to direct their own funds, rather than infantilizing them by assuming “government knows best”. It would also prevent or mitigate the “welfare trap” and disincentivize abuse of the social welfare system, for instance people choosing not to work to receive benefits. The third benefit is it would be cheaper to administrate due to elimination of the smorgasbord of different welfare programs in existence today. Yet, here we are.

This only makes sense if UBI is implemented as an alternative to current welfare programs, but to the extent that is done, I agree that it would be far better, allowing individuals to prioritize between needs, or even invest in their future.

I also like the idea of one lump sum showing how much people are getting from the government. It puts it up front and center, and the public can clearly decide how much is reasonable.

Last, if UBI is paid for with taxes, there would be no cliff, as net benefit would gradually taper then go negative as income increased.

Agreed that it’s great from a transparency perspective. At the moment it is very complicated to track the value/cost of welfare. That makes it very easy for both sides to argue that it is too much or little - very few know what it is.

The problem, IMO, with most UBI studies I’ve seen is that they inject money from outside the system without funding the system via taxes. That makes their economic conclusions largely invalid, in my opinion. Their findings typically amount to “if we give some of our citizens free money that fell from the sky, they can afford more”.

We’ve had many technological advancements, but few touch on concrete problems that actually save time or reduce costs for individuals. I suspect the next few decades will have more impact in this regard than the last 50 years.

Full self driving might be an example in the near future that will measurably lift standards of living for many. More automation, AI and robotics are the key.

No tech will be available to lift the standard of living in the same way that a reliable health care and social system, affordable housing and reasonable work life balance can. Telling people “you can’t afford health care, housing or retirement but look at how great self driving cars and phones are” is just condescending talk by the upper class to distract from growing inequality.

Healthcare is largely tech. Housing is human technology . Retirement is just accumulated savings, which go further with less expensive goods and services.

Since everything you mention that we need more of is human technology, why are you so convinced that more technology will not benefit people?

I’m certain there was a point in history where everyone was largely equal with very very little. Was this better?

Not the last few!

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