Society as a whole in the USA used to promote social progression

[reggie the dog]

as one of the core values of our soceity didn't it? The idea that if you worked hard individually and the the collective was well run that both you and society as a whole would benefit from progress and get to live a higher quality life than previous generations. Now many Americans think that it is preposterous to want to have THE SAME standard of living as previous generations...... how far we have fallen.

[TheWraith]

1. What's preposterous is the claim that we have less of a standard of living than in the past.

Sorry, but it's just not true. Things may be bad, but they're not THAT bad--things like full indoor plumbing, telephones, and social services are universal now in ways they weren't even close to 50 years ago.

[eShirl]

2. yeah, indoor plumbing... but is it yours, your landlord's, or your parents'?

[Fumesucker]

3. Maybe 75 years ago, I remember 50 years ago quite well and it wasn't that bad.

And I by no means grew up in a wealthy portion of the country, we are considered backward hicks to this day.

Socially the US has progressed a long way in fifty years, there was official apartheid when I was young, economically we've been stuck in the doldrums for going on forty years now.

[TheWraith]

4. Mid-1950s, in the middle of that post-war economic boom, one third of American homes...

...did not have full indoor plumbing.

[Fumesucker]

16. Indoor plumbing bought on credit is no bargain..

And that's basically what happened.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/one-per-cent-wealth-destroyers

<snip>

What has happened over the past 30 years is the capture of the world's common treasury by a handful of people, assisted by neoliberal policies which were first imposed on rich nations by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. I am now going to bombard you with figures. I'm sorry about that, but these numbers need to be tattooed on our minds. Between 1947 and 1979, productivity in the US rose by 119%, while the income of the bottom fifth of the population rose by 122%. But from 1979 to 2009, productivity rose by 80%, while the income of the bottom fifth fell by 4%. In roughly the same period, the income of the top 1% rose by 270%.

<snip>

[Angry Dragon]

5. Gas used to be 25 cents a gallon

in 1957 you could buy a 3 bedroom rambler for $15,500
social services are being cut
people living in cars


I guess it is up to each one of us to decide if our standard of living has decreased
and have to decide if we are afraid if it is going to go down lower
if we can afford to go see the doctor or if we should let the disease or illness kill us slowly

When the government figures show us that wages have not kept pace
we should just believe you.

[TheWraith]

6. And adjusted for inflation, that house would cost $120,000.

People love to put on the rose-colored glasses when it comes to the past, and portray a pre-1980 era of cheap housing and plentiful everything. The reality is that it didn't work that way. The average wage in 1957 was $3,641 a year. Not to mention that if you were black, you made a third of what you would have if you were white.

[Angry Dragon]

8. and has the average wage kept up with inflation??

[TheWraith]

10. Actually it's substantially exceeded inflation.

The average wage in 1957 was $3641. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $27,871 today.

The actual median income in the US for the most recent year we have data is $44,389.

[reggie the dog]

12. you need to compare average wage adjusted for inflation

from 1975 and today, as working peoples wages grew steadily until 1975 or 1980.

[TheWraith]

23. Wages are still much better today than in 1975.

The average wage for 1975 was $8,631. Adjusted for inflation, that would be equivalent to $34,578 today. $41,673 still beats it. Source of the figures for wages is the Social Security Administration, by the way.

[reggie the dog]

26. do you have the numbers for 1980 out of curiosity?

you also need to count the cost of living adjusted for inflation, housing prices increased a lot from the mid 70s and that cost made it so you had to have much more income in a family in order to buy a home.

[TheWraith]

31. Certainly do.

Average wage in 1980 was $12,513. Adjusted for inflation, that's $32,672.

In 1985 it was $16,822, adjusted to $33,627.

1990, $21,027 adjusted to $34,624.

1995, $24,705 adjusted to $34,993.

2000, $32,154 adjusted to $40,298.

2005, $36,952 adjusted to $40,898.

The inflation calculations are based on the Consumer Price Index, so it includes housing as a weighted sub-average.

[reggie the dog]

34. it is interesting the 5 eighths of the increase in

wage adjusted for inflation came in the 1995 to 2000 period.

do these average wages include all wage earners? because the income at the top have grown more quickly since 1980 than the vast majority of wages have. also where do you get these stats from?

[TheWraith]

36. They include everybody, but they're Social Security Admin numbers, so they're weighted.

Here's how it's put on their site:

When we compute a person's retirement benefit, we use the national average wage indexing series to index that person's earnings. Such indexation ensures that a worker's future benefits reflect the general rise in the standard of living that occurred during his or her working lifetime.

In other words, it's designed to reflect what a realistic wage is. So some of that rise 1995-2000 is attributable to actual rises in average wages, while some is also attributable to indexing new, highly paying technology jobs, like engineering specialties that pull down $100k, etcetera.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html

The inflation calculations are based on the CPI.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

[Angry Dragon]

18. you use average wage for one year and median for another year

which one is the correct one??

[TheWraith]

22. That actually works in your favor: "average wage" would be higher.

Median means half make more, half make less. Average is all the wages added up then divided. So you could have one CEO making $10 million, and 100 factory workers making $20,000, and say that the "average" wage is $118,000. Median is the more accurate measurement.

[Angry Dragon]

27. Would you happen to know the median wage in 1957??

and could you buy that $120,000 home??

[TheWraith]

33. I'm afraid I don't. The best I have is the median household income, which isn't the same.

Still, the figures I quoted are from the Social Security Administration, so they are weighted to minimize inaccuracy. And I've been underemployed since the economic crisis hit, so I won't be buying a house right now regardless of whether it's $50,000 or $120,000.

[JVS]

40. Median household income is a bad measure, because it compares dual income...

to what used to be single income households.

The median wage for an individual in the us is approx. $25,000 in the Wikipedia articles dealing with US per capita economic statistics.

[LongTomH]

7. True, living standards ROSE for most of the 20th Century.

Then, after 1980, after Ronnie and Maggie, living standards for most people - the 99%ers -- remained mostly flat, which meant that many people at the bottom of the ladder were losing ground. After Y2K - the Bush years - most people found they were losing ground. The 'Great Recession' merely accelerated that trend.

[Vincardog]

9. My grandmother had an out house. WE are close to returning to that.

[TheWraith]

11. No, we're not, and your claims are not backed up by any kind of objective data.

There's a wide, wide gap between "the economy sucks" and living without plumbing, electricity, or the rest of modern society.

[Vincardog]

14. When I say WE I am talking about MY HOUSE I know where WE are.

[TheWraith]

25. Well, sorry for you then.

But that's still not the same as one third of the American public not having full plumbing.

[TBF]

21. Here is your objective data - gap between rich and poor greater now than in 1928

Our nation has now created a larger gap in the distribution of wealth than the massive chasm that helped fuel the Great Depression. In 1928, one year before the global economic collapse, the wealthiest .001% of the U.S. population owned 892 times more than 90% of the nation’s citizens. Today, the top .001% of the U.S. population owns 976 times more than the entire bottom 90%. This is not sustainable, and makes for a very volatile economy.

Source: EcoLocalizer (http://s.tt/12tvA)

[TheWraith]

24. Which is not the same thing as people being worse off today than in 1950 or 1975. nt

[TBF]

35. Well how do you propose we measure "well off"? You complained about lack of data so I provided it.

What else do you want?

[TheWraith]

37. You provided data that was irrelevant to the discussion.

The fact that the gap between the super-rich and everyone else is larger doesn't negate the fact that the average person is much better off today than they were twenty, forty, or sixty years ago. My point being that the rose-colored glasses which prompt us to look back on the '50s or the '70s as some time of plenty and full employment aren't accurate. Everything looks better in hindsight.

[TBF]

38. How do you measure that in an objective fashion? How do you define "well off"

when the richest 10% control 2/3 of the wealth in the country?

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

[TheWraith]

39. How about you try actually using the words that I spoke, instead of making shit up?

I said "better off." You can't actually dispute that using facts, so you decide to imagine I said "well off" so that you can argue something having to do income disparity instead of the original topic, which is standard of living.

The indisputable fact is that an average working person today, even a relatively poor person, has a FAR better standard of living and makes more money when adjusted for inflation than their counterpart did twenty, forty, or sixty years ago. That just doesn't sit well with you, it seems.

[TBF]

43. It's not that it doesn't sit well, it's that I don't believe it's true. How would you define

"better off"? Do you have any objective statistics to show that we are making more money when adjusted for inflation? You are the person making these claims so I'd like you to provide the data. If you can't do that than I'll just assume you're pulling these words out of your ass because you think it will get Obama re-elected.

You don't have to worry about me - I will vote for the most progressive person on the ticket. In Texas that's Obama because they don't even list socialists down here much less communists. Most folks in my area will be voting for Ron Paul - I kid you not.

But lying isn't going to help you in your quest to convince others. If you can provide the data that would be great and I'll not question your motives. As it is now I really do think you're making things up.

[reggie the dog]

15. i lived at a place with an outhouse for 3 months this summer

why?

1 live in countryside
2 live where tourists come and the rent quadruples for 2 months in the summer
3. squat a caravan left up in the woods on a friends property

no electricity, no toilet, showers is outdoor and the water heats in a black pipe in the sun so about 2 mins warm water and you can drink the water too but the toilet is an outhouse


i know more than one person living in such a place up in the hills around where i live,

why? no fucking money for better, no fucking jobs, shit salary jobs.....

just sayin what i see

[Vincardog]

17. Too true. Peace

[reggie the dog]

29. 2 dogs shitting in holes in the woods

aint the 21st century great ;)

[Doremus]

20. The younger generations are the first that will not exceed their parents'

standard of living. Many work 2 and 3 jobs just to maintain the bare minimum in terms of a roof over their heads and food on the table. This is a far cry from the 50s and 60s, when stay-at-home moms in suburbia were the norm and it didn't require Dad working 24/7 or living on Skid Row to accomplish.

By the way, your assertion that social services are so entrenched in our society that they are in no danger of ever disappearing is silly to the extreme. Do you read or watch the news?

[WCGreen]

42. Hell I remember party lines....

[Doremus]

13. The difference between then and now is the repukes have taken over the media.

Rules against the consolidation of media ownership have been relaxed over the years so now we have a few large companies controlling what message is broadcast. When you control the message you control popular sentiment.

Media ownership combined with unlimited corporate spending on elections will ultimately destroy us, and in fact we are already well on our way.

[bhikkhu]

19. That's a big interesting topic if you look at it globally

which I don't think has really been done yet. For instance, while the US trade balance with Mexico has gone pear-shaped in the last couple of decades and cost us jobs, the whole economy there has been transformed - they have a solid middle class and 4.9% unemployment rate.

And while our trade balance (which you can also look at as a net transfer of wealth) with China has gone seriously wrong in the past 30 years, costing many many jobs here, China has transformed itself into a modern economy, and a whole generation there has opportunities and a standard of living that was unimaginable before...

so to some extent our sacrifices (whether they were voluntary or conscious) have helped to create a more equal and open world overall. What is really eye-opening is to read about working conditions here 100 years ago or before, England in the 18th century, Asia 40 years ago, etc...the whole world has come a long way. I'm not sure if the stagnation of US wage growth had anything to do with that, but if it did I don't mind the trade-off myself.

For my own part - my wages were higher in 1990 than they are today. I worked then in a big national-chain shop that wasn't union but competed for labor with union shops. Since then most of the larger shops have folded and the unions shrank, and now I work in a small shop where things are run pretty tight - we price to what people can afford, treat people well, pay wages that we can live on, and so far have done well through the recession.

[Odin2005]

28. What I find sick is how...

...people have been brainwashed to want to being down the pay of unionized workers out of spite and jealousy rather than agitating to raise their own wages.

[reggie the dog]

30. the same thing is happening in france

people would rather fight to lower the wages of unionized civil servants than strike to demand raises.

it is fucking mind blowing

[kestrel91316]

32. I wish I had half the standard of living I grew up with.

[Romulox]

41. The US has the worst social mobility of any major country in the developed world.

How is "social progression" possible in that context?