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good with the flow there, US here and agree

> most Americans don't have the disposable income

odd formulas since lots of common urban addictions use up money, and lots of incarcerated cant buy things directly. Not an economist here, but I think of it like "circulation" in a body.. there are cold spots and overheated spots, not evenly flowing.

Commerce in this US West location is not at all as it was before the ubiquitous phone, that is for certain.

Inequality is absolutely part of what's masking things, yeah. And, yes, we've found cheaper and more efficient ways of doing things via ubiquitous connectivity and compute. Weirdly, the cost savings never really bolstered individual savings.

Americans have the second highest median disposable income in the world (after Luxemborg), adjusted for PPP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

I know your claims are generally accepted fact. Where is the disconnect?

Distribution thereof?

As well as what exactly constitutes "disposable" income; it might not actually be disposable, depending on how that's defined or measured.

That data is the median. The distribution may be uneven, but even the median American has more PPP adjusted income than all but Luxembourg citizens.

OK, but the second point also stands. Income is not the same as disposable income. The OECD data claims to measure the latter, but you'd have to look into the data definitions to see what that means.

Landlords. Medical debt.

Prices have inflated for decades. Minimum wage has stagnated.

Friendly reminder that "inflation" more or less definitionally implies that wages increase proportionally to consumer goods prices. If prices are going up and wages aren't, it's just people getting proportionally poorer.

Costs have inflated, wages have not.

They have, though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38325650

There is a psychological effect in that price rises are perceived as inflation while wage increases are seen as personally earned. So even though real wages are going up, at the individual level, they're not seen as being macro-economically driven.

This is an awful metric for such a discussion, almost seems disingenuous.

>It's that the average American, in real terms, is increasingly broke.

AFAIK inflation adjusted wages have been creeping up in the last decade, or at least remained flat. What statistics support the claim that they're "increasingly broke"?

That is incorrect. They are at their lowest point in 75 years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065466/real-nominal-val...

There is also deeper nuance to consider, like the fact that essential goods such as grocery items have been inflating much faster than other markets, especially in most recent years.

Parent was talking about wages in general, your chart is for the federal minimum wage.

You're right, I missed that in haste. I do think it's still worthwhile to consider the minimum wage since it applies direct upward pressure on other hourly wages, and the question is "how many Americans are effectively broke." The purchasing power of the absolute average American doesn't really answer that question with growing wealth inequality.

>You're right, I missed that in haste. I do think it's still worthwhile to consider the minimum wage since it applies direct upward pressure on other hourly wages

That's all true, but is there any reason why we should take the minimum wage seriously when we have median wage data, and only 1.5% of Americans are on the federal minimum wage? Clearly it's not a representative number at all.

https://www.zippia.com/advice/minimum-wage-statistics/

>the question is "how many Americans are effectively broke." The purchasing power of the absolute average American doesn't really answer that question with growing wealth inequality.

Why don't you present your statistics then? Also, "broke" =/= "wealth inequality", unless you subscribe to the view that living in 1400s like conditions is not "broke" if everyone else is also equally poor.

>> I do think it's still worthwhile to consider the minimum wage since it applies direct upward pressure on other hourly wages

> That's all true

You're conceding a lot; that claim would not generally be viewed as true.

Pointing out the points raised is hardly "conceding" when the points are of very little relevance to the claim of "Americans are broke", nor does it rebut the claim of "inflation adjusted wages have been creeping up in the last decade". It's not contradictory to admit that minimum wages have effects on economy wide wages, but also claim that wages have been creeping up.

> Pointing out the points raised is hardly "conceding" when the points are of very little relevance to the claim of "Americans are broke"

"Conceding" is when you stipulate that the points raised are true; it's especially egregious when they aren't.

Were you planning to actually contribute something to the conversation, in terms of a counterpoint with additional data to consider? Or just be an aggressive naysayer?

Median. And my 20-30 years might have been inaccurate; compare to 1970, not 2000. It seems to be a "crime is on the rise" situation; a 50% gain after a 50% drop doesn't get you back to 100.

>Median

Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over (LES1252881600Q)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

>It seems to be a "crime is on the rise" situation; a 50% gain after a 50% drop doesn't get you back to 100.

The statistics are recording absolute numbers, not "50% gain after a 50% drop".

>Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over

So, a number of problems:

>Since 1979. The drop you see at the beginning of the chart is the tail end of a plunge in the 70s as productivity decoupled from wages. This is where the "gain after a drop" is an issue: we are slightly up from rates that were massively down (and not shown on this chart). Then we see stagnation within a ~15% band until just before the start of the pandemic, where there is a dramatic spike that's already regressing.

>CPI-weighted. CPI is flawed: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/012915/what-are-som... Many of the increased costs are not reflected.

>Since 1979. The drop you see at the beginning of the chart is the tail end of a plunge in the 70s as productivity decoupled from wages

What "plunge" are you talking about? Even the famous (but flawed) graph from epi shows a very small dip: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSDmFnp.... Also that was in the 80s, not the 70s as you claimed.

>Then we see stagnation within a ~15% band until just before the start of the pandemic, where there is a dramatic spike that's already regressing

Again, im not understanding how this could be an issue when the chart is using absolute numbers. If it dips a little then returns to previous levels that does not cause a "50% gain after a 50% drop doesn't get you back to 100" situation because the graph isn't using percentage change.

> Many of the increased costs are not reflected.

Which specific components do you have issue with? Moreover, the cpi is supposed to represent the country as a whole, so depending on your life situation your true living costs will either be lower or higher than expected. College tuition makes up about 1% of CPI, but if you're a student it's probably your top 3 expense. That's fine, because it's canceled out by all the Americans that aren't in college. The same applies for housing. If you're just moving out and have to find an apartment at market rates you might think the CPI isn't accurately capturing housing costs, but keep in mind that most Americans own their homes and therefore aren't paying market rents.

>What "plunge" are you talking about? Even the famous (but flawed) graph from epi shows a very small dip: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSDmFnp.... Also that was in the 80s, not the 70s as you claimed.

https://www.epi.org/publication/americas-slow-motion-wage-cr...

Again, growth is overstated because CPI is flawed and tends to understate the actual growth of cost burdens. So the "slow growth" mentioned here is people losing ground.

> If it dips a little then returns to previous levels

That's the problem: it didn't. Your assertion that it did is based on an unnecessarily limited data window. Zoom out, and you'll see a declining standard of living and a lowered ability for Americans to take their wages and buy durable goods (colloquial denotation). The declining birth and home-ownership rates for younger generations compared to older ones at the same age did not just come out of nowhere, and the general increase in debt load is part of the answer to why the entire thing hasn't collapsed yet.

>Which specific components do you have issue with? Moreover, the cpi is supposed to represent the country as a whole

The link went over many, and I would hope that you'd have read it and not asked that question. But, as a general gripe: its basic nature as an index makes it game-able, and the people who make the decisions about what goes into it have a conflict of interest: they answer to the people who answer to voters (more likely to be older, monied, white), and the people who can pay for votes. You might say that it's a coincidence that it then tends to show less of a crisis in income and purchasing power than many (younger, poorer, not white) feel exists, but I'm not so naive.