Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

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What puzzles me is that people seem to have to work more and more to make ends meet.

I don't know about Germany, but in the US we work less than before.

Hours worked per employee is down, while the employment to population ratio isn't up enough to compensate:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USAAHWEP

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EMRATIO

Employment per capita was up a bit during the peak of the 90's bubble - by 2 hours/week over the 1970's.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fredgraph.png?g=d5P

Further, I think if you compared the same basket of goods, you'd discover that it's actually quite easy to make ends meet 1970's style. You'd live in a house that is tiny (by modern standards), drive one car/family, and give up all sorts of expensive medical treatments invented more recently than 1970 (MRI, chemotherapy, viagra, most prescription drugs). Not to mention all sorts of labor saving devices in the home (e.g., a dishwasher, washer/dryer or roomba).

The right question to ask: is all the stuff we've gained since 1970 worth an extra 1-2 hours/week of paid labor?

[edit: an earlier version of this post asserted working hours didn't rise at all. That was incorrect - I compared the endpoints. After the fact I spotted the fallacy, and put my third graph in the post.]

One problem is that is not possible to cut costs and live 1970's style, at least not where I live (metro-Boston):

- I do not have the option of paying much less for health insurance and still maintain access to emergency room care, while not getting access to the most modern and expensive treatments. I can get modern cadillac, blank check, insurance, or I get nothing at all. And if I go without insurance and pay out of pocket, the costs are frightfully expensive since I have do not have access to the much cheaper negotiated rates and could be on the hook to pay whatever the hospital charges, even for the most simple procedure.

- I do not have the option of paying much less for a 1970's style car. There are imported cars that cost $7k U.S. that are equivalent to what you could buy in 1970, but they are not legal for sale. The cheapest cars on the market today are just as expensive as the cheapest cars on the road in 1970, relative to median income.

- If I live in the suburbs, there is no option to have only one car and maintain the same standard of access as in the 1960's. All of retail, employment, and housing is now completely car centric, and a second car is essential for running errands, shopping, going to work, and generally getting around anywhere.

- If I live closer to the city or in many of the ring suburbs, I do not have an option for a cheaper, smaller home. I am mainly paying for land, not for the size of the home, so even a small home is more expensive than the equivalent home in 1970. Zoning laws have restricted building, while easy lending and two income families have resulted in the prices getting bid up. If I do find a cheap home, it is very likely in a neighborhood with more violence and worse schools than an equivalent home in 1960.

- Earning a median or upper middle class income now requires a much greater investment in schooling than earning the equivalent income did in 1960. That is a cost that must be taken into account when comparing standards of livings.

Most other benefits of modernity ( dishwashers, mobile phones, kindles, laptops) are actually relatively cheap. We're not working extra hours to buy iphones. It would be fully feasible to halve the working hours and get that night stuff. I appreciate that we have these great toys and conveniences, but appreciating advances in some areas of the economy does not mean that we should ignore decline in other areas.

I'd also note that I do not really have the option of taking half pay and working half hours. I wrote about this on HN a few days ago - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4780087 I need to work hard enough to stay ahead of the Joneses. If I fall behind, my income does not just fall a little bit, I could fall out of the workforce entirely, or fall out into much lower paying career tracks (as has happened to friends of mine). So given that I have to work hard, I end up earning more money than I really need, and I do get to enjoy eating out a lot and buying expensive cappuccinos. I might rather work less, make less, and live luxuriously, but I do not have that option.

I agree with some of what you are saying (healthcare, educational arms race..) but you live in one of the most expensive areas in the US (the world?). That is a personal choice.

(also buying a car thats ~5 years old is much more cost efficient than buying new)

Well, it's sort of a personal choice. I was born and raised in metro-Boston, my family is here, my dad was born and raised here, etc, So when I'm comparing standards of living I am comparing against that of my family before me.

You are correct that in many places, it is illegal to purchase less than a certain amount of stuff (e.g., cheap cars, small houses, cheap insurance).

This certainly does make living cheaply more difficulty. However, this doesn't change the fact that we are getting a lot more stuff for marginally more work (comparing trough to peak).

My grandfather worked as a bar manager (not owner) and his wife did not work. They were one of the first to get a TV and washing machine on their street, had a car, went on foreign holidays every few years and had 5 children.

What wage would you need to be in a similar position today?

Depends what you mean by similar position, absolutely or relatively? In other words, what would be equiv lifestyle be today?

A holiday every year, a new car and a house full of apple stuff?

In the UK you could get a TV and washing machine off craigslist for not very much. You could fly to continental europe and back for less than £100 pp. You can pick up a car for maybe £2000 or so.

Difficult to say what a bar managers salary is today, I've seen very vary from marginally above minimum wage to maybe £50-60K.

> In the UK you could get a TV and washing machine off craigslist for not very much. You could fly to continental europe and back for less than £100 pp. You can pick up a car for maybe £2000 or so.

Then £145/year for a TV license, £200/year for road tax and MOT costs, £500/year for car insurance, £500-1000/year for petrol, etc. A £2000 car is going to be a maintenance nightmare, probably add £500/year to cover costs.

Don't even get me started on the cost of owning or renting a place to live, which will make all these costs pale in comparison...

Not meaning to insinuate anything... just raising the possibility that a bar manager might have additional sources of discretionary income more easily deterred, detected, and controlled today?

Perhaps we can agree that "bar manager" is subject to temptations, and rewards, that most jobs aren't?

In the attractive cities housing is very expensive, even a small place might be out of reach for a family.

However, you made me realize that it is of course a choice to live in the city (kind of, depending on job availability), and in the countryside things might be cheaper.

Actually I wonder if the "one person sustains the family" thing was mainly a thing of the countryside. In Germany there are some cities that are dominated by one big company. If you were around when those companies started, you probably had very good living conditions (good wage because of the successful company, cheap housing because of the countryside).

Not sure if such companies even get started anymore these days. Perhaps the IT companies have to go to the cities because IT workers prefer the stimulating environment. Less of a concern for the factory workers of the past? Just a thought off the top of my head, though.

Actually the perhaps biggest German IT company, SAP, is one such case of a big company dominating a small city. But it also started quite a while ago already (1972). SAP has it's main base in "Walldorf", a village of 15000 people. I suspect people working for SAP in Walldorf don't have trouble to afford a house.

> "In the attractive cities housing is very expensive"

I've never found high cost-of-living cities to be particularly more attractive than average cost-of-living cities.

I definitely wouldn't consider Oakland (40% higher than US average COL) an attractive city. Certainly not more attractive than Orlando (2% lower than US average COL).

But of course, what city we consider "attractive" is also a choice. If one considers Manhattan to be the most attractive because of some particular attribute, then choosing to live in the most attractive space is going to be costly and perhaps out of reach with a single middle class income. But a single middle class income is plenty to live in a comfortable house in a decent neighborhood in Denver, Kansas City, or Dallas, and many people find those places quite attractive.

Side point, but in the U.S. at least, dishwashers and washers/dryers were pretty common in the 1970s. In my mind they're even very postwar 1950s/60s culturally. My grandparents living in a small 1930s house in LA weren't that well off, so were behind on acquiring such things, but even they had ditched the backyard clothesline by sometime in the 1960s. Admittedly, they didn't have a Roomba.

Are Roombas common now? Forgive my ignorance but I didn't know they expanded past the fad phase. Even my wealthier friends don't have one.

dishwasher and washer/dryer? Dont you mean smart phone and tablet?

I wonder if those figures include unpaid overtime or not?

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