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Comment by verteu | Hacker News Reader

> "Unfortunately, what has happened is that wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living, by and large, for the last 50 years or so"

Not sure about 50 years, but from 2001-2020 (period where data is most easily available for me) things seem fine?

CPI: 175.1->257.971 (2.1%/yr)

Median wage: $27060 -> $46310 (2.9%/yr)

Mean wage: $34020 -> $61900 (3.2%/yr)

Bottom 10% wage: $18140 -> $27340 (2.2%/yr)

Rent burden (median_wage / median_rent): 25% -> 28% (and it's now back down to 27%)

[1] https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?bls [2] eg https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=median+US+wage+2022

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> median_rent

I am wondering if it is low because people simply downsizing..

It barely seems possible (much less likely) for everyone (in aggregate) to downsize. Probably someone is buying or moving into their old (newly-vacant) property?

If rent to income increased two times in 25 years, I totally see how significant fraction of population downsized.

Why do you think rent to income increased 2x in L25y? The numbers I've seen are a small fraction of that.

> Why do you think rent to income increased 2x in L25y?

I didn't say I think this happened, I just gave example with "if", in reality change may be not as extreme, but even say 20% change on average meaning that certain slice of population was downsizing because was affected dramatically.

I think these stats are not even and can be heavily sliced by region/social slice, e.g. in silicon valley rent definitely raised 2-3 times in last 15 years, but blue color workers didn't receive equal raise in wages.

> in silicon valley rent definitely raised 2-3 times in last 15 years, but blue color workers didn't receive equal raise in wages.

Source? In the last 15 years, SF median rent went up 78% and SF minimum wage went up 93% [1] [2], so it seems quite likely blue color wages outpaced inflation.

I notice a worrying trend where people invent negative economic stats instead of looking at the real numbers [3].

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUURA422SEHA

[2] https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-02/Historical%20...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibecession

I know the price of specific apartments. 2br went up from 1600 to 3200-3800(depending on month price varies), and many blue color workers who used to live there moved from that complex.

> SF median rent

your graph shows not SF (which is actually not silicon valley) but SF-Oakland metropolitan area. SF rent likely raised more than that.

> SF minimum wage went up 93%

Min wage is an outlier, they couldn't afford rent then and now.

Another factor is taxes, while wages increased, wages after taxes increased slower, because pushed income to another bracket.

It's impossible to have a serious discussion on (rent/income) trends if your only source is an ancedote about a single (unnamed) apartment's price. (And you include no data on wages at all.)

You are free to go.

If you don't want to have a thoughtful discussion based on data, HN is not for you.

We both don't have reliable data. I have anecdote, which is very well aligned with the market in my area, you are free to be in denial.

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