Hacker News Reader

Comment by halls-940 | Hacker News Reader

When you look at real wages vs cost of living and the trend line is down and showing no signs of ever going back up, the question will I be able to afford the resources to survive and have a family, will my kids be able to afford a home, that's the growing uncertainty.

View on HN

This is widely believed, but not true: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N.

There is a real issue that housing is unreasonably expensive in many areas, which we could fix via the innovative strategy of not making it illegal to build housing.

Now plot that wage plot against productivity, or corporate profit, or any US stock index, or as you said: housing costs. Real wages are not keeping up with anything. It's not just housing.

That data exists.

Here is real wages with cost of living factored in for a bunch of locations in the US. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release?rid=439

This data shows that real wages are rising even with cost of living factored in.

The price of food/groceries has doubled over the last few years. The price of new cars is also much higher than it has been. All money I used to allocate to eating out in restuarants now goes to groceries. My next car purchase will be a used car. So there are workarounds for now, but if the trend doesn't stop, soon there will be no more workarounds. Only so many people can get the high-wage jobs.

What are you looking at? Economic data shows real wages have trended up over the last 40 years, at least in the United States. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

Household income is not wages. If people work more hours income goes up while wages are flat. That series only includes full-time workers. High earners are doing better, that's the k-shaped economy. The upside of going to college is being carved out by changes in the labor market. A more representative measure would be average wage for non supervisory roles which is flat since the 1970s. Lower earners face higher inflation than the CPI because more of their paycheck goes to necessities. CPI shelter is what I'm interested in.

Here's the actual data broken out for a variety of locations (I see someone else found the whole country): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release?rid=439

The data don't support the story you are telling, at least not on a 17 year time scale. Most places including LA and New York actually show the opposite. Real wages are rising faster than cost of living in the long term just about everywhere in the US.

I understand the argument, and housing is a problem, but there just isn't much to support the doom and gloom narrative if you don't use cherry picked data from opeds. I suspect that a lot of people have distorted views about what they should be able to afford.

>The data don't support the story you are telling, at least not on a 17 year time scale. Most places including LA and New York actually show the opposite.

People point to the 1960s as the "golden age" where everyone could afford everything on a single person working an easy entry-level job. However, that is also a meme, not reality. According to the census bureau median family income in 1960 was $5,600, which is $58,946.59 in Jan 2024 dollars. It's $83,730 in 2024. For individual males, in 1960 it was $4,100 ($43,157.33 Jan 2024 dollars) and $71,090 in 2024.

Sources:

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1962/demo/p60-03...

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-28...

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

Usually when people say things were better back in the old days they talk about what that money could get you, not inflation adjusted dollars.

You're conflating income and wages. People are working more hours so income increases while wages are flat. And people who aren't full-time aren't counted in that income figure.

How so?

The source I provided specifically does not look at total income but real wages compared to cost of living. Did you look at the data you are arguing against?

Also, you are wrong about people working more hours. Here's the actual numbers. We are working slightly fewer hours than we have been on average for the past 20 years: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AWHAETP.

Has it occurred to you that the data really just doesn't support your perception? People have been giving you sources that refute what you are saying at every level. I get it. I keep reading and seeing people talk about how awful everything is, but I just can't find hard evidence that this is the case on a broad basis. You should look into the concept of the "vibe-cession". People are convincing themselves that things are getting worse based on talk and perception, and, well, one of the limits of humanity is that perception is reality inside your head.

Did you worry about any of those things as a freshman?

Yes? When I started college 16-ish years ago the '08 financial crisis was still fresh in my mind. Many of my peers were deeply concerned about the kinds of jobs and wages they could expect to find after graduation.

And did that worry manifest?

As someone that graduated when you started and was much closer to 08, it turned out to be a non-issue for everyone I know that went to college with me.

It did not, at least not for me. But that wasn't the question: the question was whether or not it was something I thought about as a freshman. It was, though I obviously can't prove one way or another if my concern for the future made a difference in my earnings out of school. I can only provide my own anecdata on the matter.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com