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Comment by bbarn | Hacker News Reader

I have heard the argument that a negative effect of the post WW2 "feminist" movement (by that I mean women in the work force) has had the long term effect of causing prices to simply adjust to the dual income household, to the point that now it is a necessity. It is a privileged family today that can afford to live comfortably on only one salary.

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I think piketty would disagree. Productivity per worker has gone up but the share of profits going to workers has gone down. This is not some kind of inflation driven by scarcity.

The ultra wealthy hired the best to win a game of financial manipulation that the rest of us didn’t even know was being played.

The median salary would be six figure if the share of productivity gains was distributed like it was in 1970.

I think focussing on salary alone isn't a great strategy.

If you doubled everyone's salary, the gain would almost certainly be absorbed by real estate or some other necessity.

Regulations on maximum working hours, access to fair housing, education, healthcare etc might work better.

I agree with you that gains in income will be absorbed.

Providers of necessities can demand large portions of people’s income due to lack of supply. It’s a basic monopoly. We see that in real estate, health care, education, elderly and child care.

They can’t charge endlessly because at some point people are priced out. Homelessness, lack of education, delaying medical care until an emergency and relying on laws that non-payers cannot be denied treatment.

But they can travel up the supply demand curve and take from everybody that can still afford it, because the supply is constrained. TVs are cheap, because of competition from overseas. Land or health care prices are not.

Can you further elaborate on why more government intervention would work better?

There are valid arguments on both sides of the issue.

What do you think would be the best way to help ensure everyone gets a fair share?

GDP per capita is $80K in the US.

I suspect this includes people of all ages, so if we distribute this only to working age, that’s probably close to $100K (six figures)

GDP != salary.

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/average-salary-by-ag...

median wage at 45yo (the peak) is $64k.

I know. I’m an economist. The post was talking hypothetical if the gains were better distributed.

GDP/capita is that maximum hypothetical number where the full gross domestic production is evenly distributed to all people.

gotcha. that makes sense

Is the average salary six figures?

That's sort of a tricky question since most of the income and wealth of the upper crust of modern society is not expressed as a salary. The simple answer is no, but the fact that it's such a complex answer is itself indicative of a systemic problem.

GDP per capita in the US is $80K [wikipedia]

I assume it includes everyone regardless of age, so the average salary when only considering people working if probably $100K or above

Salary != Wealth.

There are billionaires that don’t make a single penny a year, and broke folks pulling in 6-7 figures.

Looking at some type of combination of income + net worth is probably better in most cases.

That being said, most folks in the US make less than $100,000/year and have less than a $100,000 net worth.

Of course not, it's driven by ability to pay.

And while I'm not a professional economist it does seem that you are correct in that demand-pull based inflation (cost of goods) tends to only happen in periods of economic expansion, while cost-push inflation (size of money supply) tends to be the driver in slower times.

Except that with machines doing more of the on the job labor at the same time that women are entering the work force en-mass, there was more competition for fewer jobs which depressed wages.

There is always an infinite amount of jobs. Whenever too few people hoard too much wealth is when economic activity slows down and some jobs are no longer worth doing.

Theres another level to this going on in certain places too. Its not enough to have both partners working. Now in places like the bay area if you want to be competitive in the housing market, both partners have to be working high income jobs not just working at all. Even if you have a great title, if your partner doesnt, you will be lapped by people who have vastly more buying power than either of you can ever muster together.

I wonder if this creates some serious perverse incentives in the dating scene in these parts of the country. Like people who understand this economic situation and unfortunately write off what might have been great partners because their line of work will never afford the standards of living their dual high income peers are able to achieve.

The best thing that most younger people in the Bay Area can do to improve their quality of life is to move somewhere else. Decades of bad government and an influx of grifters have eroded the advantages it once had. You might take a temporary income hit by leaving but most regular workers will end up better off in the long run.

We can argue about what should be done to improve the situation in the Bay Area, but realistically any major changes will take decades to work through the political process. That's going to be too slow to matter for any younger people who are trying to build a decent life right now.

As for dating, the skewed gender ratio in "Man Jose" also makes things difficult in a way that transcends economics.

> makes things difficult

for who?

People have been choosing partners for money since forever, that's certainly not a new thing

Rust belt cities are actually pretty nice, and you can escape that rat race. Maybe you don't want to live there, but they are nice places.

Move to East Palestine or Pontiac MI and wait for this month’s chemical spill to find you?

That argument, like all arguments that somehow equate wages with inflation, would hold water if the productivity of the workforce was constant.

We know that it isn't. Productivity of the workforce is ever increasing. The generated wealth simply doesn't make it to the workforce.

> The generated wealth simply doesn't make it to the workforce.

Some of it does - real wages in the US are higher than in the past: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

Let me contextualize that "some" for you: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=17rEg

Real wages have effectively flat-lined over the past 50+ years.

Doesn't it?

And I don't, by any measure, mean that all of it does, but nowadays we have luxuries we simply didn't have before, are these not fruits of that increased productivity?

> but nowadays we have luxuries

Who's we?

I know I am living a privileged comfortable life, yes. I am certain many people in my chosen profession as a software dev do.

But I also know that there are alot more people struggling to provide basic necessities for their families, despite working 40+h per week. And I am not talking about cellphones here. I am talking about a roof over ones head, clothes on ones back, food on the table and medical services.

Women entering the formal workplace and gradually more and more jobs becoming available to both genders has also inflated traditionally “female” occupations like teachers, nurses, and childcare. When someone who could have trained as a lawyer had to instead become a teacher that kept teacher salaries lower. Nuns serving as teachers made Catholic schools affordable. Now many Catholic schools have a one two punch of the economic opportunity cost of becoming a nun being higher than ever and declining enrollment.

Privileged? I worked very hard to get that point of "privileged" to have had two single-job families. In the beginning I worked at different jobs out of necessity and in part, to see what suited me and what suited the work. I learned many different skills that helped me in my personal life - construction, housebuilding, coding (since 1978), electronics, welding, machining, technical diving, industrial rope access, organizational risk management, and leading large teams on world-class, one-of-a-kind projects. I was raised just below or at the poverty level.

I believe the level of lifestyle you may want precludes you from making a single-income household. I am very content with few things even when the times are good. A hike or walk with the family outside doesn't cost much unless you're shopping and eating out all the time while sipping $5 lattes. Plus childcare would cost a pretty significant chunk of rhe second household income, so why not let one parent be with the kids fulltime?

I wouldn't take the word privileged personally.

That would only make sense if productivity divided by half.

On the other hand, people's requirements have simply inflated to much higher standards, while technology semi-automated some of the housekeeping stuff - washing clothes, dishes, making food, heating, cleaning.

For this theory to be correct you’d need the total work hours being provided to employers to have doubled accordingly.

Elizabeth Warren made that exact argument.

https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents-...

Why put feminist between quotes?

Because I don't think it's particularly feminist to force both parents to work.

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