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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

The poverty line is a moving goalpost. People below the 2013 poverty line have more goods and services than the middle class of the 60's and 70's. The mean American with $0-5000 in income consumes $22.7k/year. The mean American in 1967 produced about the same amount (and therefore consumed at most that much, since consumption=production-investment).

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ce/standard/2009/income.txt

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

This data actually wildly overstates the real consumption of people in 1967, since CPI is a gross overestimate of inflation.

If you believe living standards are declining, please list the set of goods and services that people had more of in 1967 than today. If you are correct, it shouldn't be hard - the answer should be most goods and services.

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"People below the 2013 poverty line have more goods and services than the middle class of the 60's and 70's"

I agree they do. However, lots of people no longer have just the dad working. Mum needs to work as well just to get by. And those goods are created oversees and bought for much lower prices. And -last but not least- all those goods are purchased using debt much more than in the 60's/70's.

I find it shocking the US now has more people on foodstamps than people in fulltime jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports there are 97,180,000 full time workers in the private sector. But there are 103.4 million people currently enrolled in any one of 15 subsidized federal food assistance programs. It saddens me to see this.

However, lots of people no longer have just the dad working. Mum needs to work as well just to get by.

Total hours worked/capita fluctuates and is down a little bit since 1970. There has been no upward trend. Mom works more but dad works less.

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

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

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

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/07/art3full.pdf

The poor specifically are huge beneficiaries of this trend, and work very little.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

In any case, I'm glad we are in agreement that adventured is wrong and standard of living has gone up.

Thank you for the good conversation, insights and links. You show me "Mom works more but dad works less". It leads me to wonder if Mom works more because dad works less? Full time jobs and Obamacare insurance perhaps?

"Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that the ratio of part-time to full-time jobs has completely flipped this year from historical trends. Last year, six full-time jobs were created for every one part time job. This year, only one full-time job is being created for every four new part-time jobs."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2013/08/27/its-...

It's hard to make sense of all the data...

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