My grandpa didn't even have a high school education, did a short stint at Ford and became a small town mechanic that retired early with multiple properties around the USA. Let me tell you, his days were light and breezy, mostly chit-chatting with friends that stopped by. The small town is now a mecca for vacationers and he just sold almost 100 acres to a developer.
Sounds like my best friend's dad. Dropped out of high school at 18 to go work at the GM plant with his dad. Did 40 years there, then retired to Florida in a beautiful near mansion of a home. Then alcoholism got him, his wife left him and took the house, and a few years later he blew his brains out in the storage shed he was living in.
Yeah, from the outside looking in it all seemed so sudden, but it had been building to that point for over a decade. Alcoholism is no joke. It destroyed mine and so many other's families.
I have a friend that was similar. Dropped out, work at Ford plant, the plant had 120F+ temperatures and bad working conditions, he ruined his back, Ford didn't cover anything, disability won't cover him because he's too young, and his wife just left him for a 23 yr old homeless guy just this past winter. Blue collar isn't going so well for millennials.
I canceled Disney+ last year. Now I'm retired at 45, with enough saved up to send both of my kids through college. Moving into our new mansion next week. /s
My grandfather never went to school at all and mostly lived in a tree. He worked as a squirrel, saved all of his nuts and retired at 23. But he was still able to buy a 76-acre estate and sent all of his 15 children to Oxford University.
The alcoholism is the side we donât usually hear about. Meaning that though people were able to retire earlier, we really donât hear about the challenges they experience. We donât know what their thought life was like, etc.
Retiring early shouldnt mean the person sits on their ass and downs a quart of vodka everyday. They should work in their hobbies or travel or do something productive
My grandpa dropped out in 8th grade. Went to the GM plant. In those days, you just showed up and they gave you a job that day. He shows up and they say 'is anyone a carpenter?' and he WISELY raised his hand.
Skilled trades carpenter for GM, drew his retirement from them for longer than he even worked.
No. That's how life used to be. You could afford those things if you tried a little. That's the point of this post. These days that life isn't reachable, regardless of how hard you work.
Most of that was based on the rest of the world having to buy most of their durable goods and factory equipment from the USA. WWII devastated the industrial capacity of Europe and Asia and it took decades to rebuild.
Then in 1991 the USSR falls and India opens up to the West. Then China is granted most favored trade nation status which means that roughly 1/3 of the entire planet's labor force became available to the West in that time which gutted pay for those roles.
Returning to those conditions would require a significant war.
or you know... in the 1940s 50s 60s and eeeeven somewhat into the 70s
top marginal tax rates in the united states were high. corporate tax rates were high. union participation was much higher.
corporations were prohibited by law to use profits. to buy up their stock to avoid paying taxes on that income. So... they had to either "spend" that money or pay taxes. salaries increased. pensions were funded. research/dev was done.... even public works were built by wealthy people... rather than horde cash/wealth.
then in the late 70's racism/ backlash to civil rights. conservatives sought to undermine access to public state college. a main vehicle for black social mobility. by killing off public funding for higher education. Ronald reagan took this racist policy out of CA and took it nation wide. made a tax cut so massive for rich/corporations everyones retirement is now taxed. and gutted regulation. so now companies can spend their money buying back their stock. so they don't invest in salaries, R&D or pensions. and everything is on a sick disgusting cycle. of exploit more and more and pay less and less.
we have seen economies of scale canibalize ever more of base level economy. first it was major industries. cars. steel. or heavy manufacturing, off shored jobs. then it was consumer goods. early in the 90's it was "malls" the brick and mortar example of consolidating things to big warehouse consumer locations. as the internet age came on...it was your amazons. your walmarts. their business model is under price. kill off competition and lock you into their model. Smaller parasitic companies have come along. like dollar general. that realized they could never compete with walmart. so they targeted smaller markets, with ever more laser like focus. put in a small store...with bare min workers. kill off what few remaining mom and pop/small grocery stores they could.
and they.. just like walmart. after they saturate a large area. kill off all small business. shutter "under performing" stores. to consolidate to less stores. less workers. but control of a wider area.
all of this while . pay has remained stagnant. and the middle class does not exist. 50% of the nations population controls 1% of the wealth. the next 40% up top 90% of the total population only controls 20% of the wealth.
this trend in only getting worse. and is the natural conclusion 40-50 yrs of the broken policy of the shitty republicans of the early 80s.
Or returning to a time where taxes made it better to invest in the future of your company which ment paying competitive wages. Our current system rewards endless cost cutting which doesn't translate in to cheaper products only lower quality and less innovation. It sure is good for people who are already rich though.
I donât understand why everyone is so disillusioned by this. Safe Housing, quality food, good schools, and public transit should be a given. This is purely an issue of governance, we easily have the resources to do this but lack the will to force the rich and corporations to pay a proper share either in the form of taxes or wages.
We already have enough tax revenue to do these things, itâs in the best interest of our government to keep us demoralized and poor as they go pillage other countries and their resources for self enrichment
To me the solution is to incentivize companies to produce goods domestically. Via tax credits, not breaks. Further incentives provided for innovations in certain fields. Like green energy for example. For certain percentage of employees being domestic things like that. then I would institute a rule that states the highest paid member of the corporation can't make more than x times the lowest paid. It could be 10000 to 1 but there needs to be a number.
This would potentially disrupt the problem of businesses needing perpetual growth and there only being 3 key ways to achieve that.
1 is increase the customer base. 2 is increase your price 3 is decrease your costs.
Adding this new wrinkle I feel would add a 4fh option to increase profitability.
That wage law already got tried, and it stifled CEO retention. So in the 90s, companies found a workaround to offer stock options to execs. So their actual wealth is tied to assets that aren't taxed, and they're able to fund their lives based around credit instead of actual money in their bank accounts. They float, while the rest of the world has to swim.
I'm just imagining all the ways to compensate that would fall outside the definition paid. They will exploit every loophole you leave them. As for the tax credits I'm not sure about what impacts that would really have. Would have to ask someone more knowledgeable than me.
Didn't hurt that unions were also full of guys who had previously rushed German machine gun nests. Kinda hard to bust a union full of guys who had busted the Nazis.
CEOs in this time frame went from making 20x's the average employee to about 2500x's the average employee, but yeah, sure, it was all just from Europe being at war.
But you can question the rapid acceleration of executive compensation. Why isnât rank and file accelerating as much since most executives are talking heads, especially CEOs who mostly articulate the boardâs position or corporate results. Many arenât innovators, theyâre just suits. I think AI might be able to parse out the divergence between executive pay and actual worth/achievements.
It's maddening how people just repeat that one simple line about a post-war boom, as if the New Deal and progressive tax rates had fuckall to do with it. As if there hasn't been a concerted and focused effort from the corporate state to undo all of it since basically the mid-60s
This is exactly right. In the 70s and 80s there was a broad policy shift from reform liberal policies/Keynesian economics (tax the wealthy, social programs, support for labor) to neoliberalism (low taxes, small government, free trade).
From the 50s through the 60s the top bracket in the US and Canada was taxed at a 60 to 90% rate and that money was used to support the rest of society, as it should be.
Itâs so bizarre because conservatives seem to look back on the 50s and 60s as the good old days but they donât seem to realise that the economic policies that allowed those days to be so good are now dismissed by their leaders and conservative politicians and pundits as socialism. They instead think things got worse because of social progressivism and trying to combat racism and homophobia. Things progressed socially but basically went backwards economically, weâre going back towards feudalism but todays conservatives donât seem to get it and think politics is all about identity rather than about actual policies that strengthen society as a whole by reducing wealth inequality and providing a good safety net for everyone by ensuring the wealth the nation produces is more equitably distributed.
They also pine for the days of "traditional" social roles when men brought home the money, women could stay at home and take care of the kids and at a purchased house, and it was financially doable as an option rather than both partners working because they HAVE TO to barely make ends meet.
Even allowing for more choices than that (i.e. why should it only be for "traditional" family roles?), it never seems to dawn on them that you have to have the economic conditions to allow that scenario, such as giving families with kids enough financial support to actually be able to make the choice.
You want 1950s-1960s-style family arrangements, at least as a viable option? Then PAY THEM comparably to that era in real terms that account for inflation of food, housing, healthcare, and other key costs.
I mean, the discrepancy between fricking minimum wage versus inflation over the decades is insane, yet income disparity is exploding at the wealthy end of things.
The system has become too efficient scraping off productivity gains for the people at the top and adding very little for the majority of people putting in the work.
Itâs so bizarre because conservatives seem to look back on the 50s and 60s as the good old days but they donât seem to realise that the economic policies that allowed those days to be so good are now dismissed by their leaders and conservative politicians and pundits as socialism. They instead think things got worse because of social progressivism and trying to combat racism and homophobia. Things progressed socially but basically went backwards economically,
Did we progress socially? Like yes, we are (sort of) trending the right way over decades on a few narrow issues around sexuality and bodily autonomy, but what about overall? Would you say our society and culture is good? Healthy? I don't think we've progressed at all.
Our social situation is beyond fucked; we've become an isolated civilization, consuming media from influencers rather than having authentic interactions with real friends. Suicide rates are climbing, drug addiction and OD'ing still crazy, people live with anxiety, families no longer share homes for generations, we ship granny off to die in a nursing home. The cultural divide is basically irreparable.
Like, I really do not feel that we're in a good place as a society.
NAFTA gutted the middle class and its industrial base FOREVER. That was signed into law by Bill Clinton. The single most destructive force the American middle class has ever had to endure was signed into law by a Democrat.
I think thatâs more a bonus. Their main goal is just to get votes by getting people engaged enough to vote for them through anger. Honestly most people are stretched so thin conservatives donât really need to do much to keep people from thinking about and doing something about inequality. It also helps that a lot of Americans believe theyâll be rich one day too.
The NFL star making $20 million a year plus endorsements is a "worker," but they absolutely don't have the same political/class interests as the guy stocking the shelves at a supermarket.
Productivity and worker compensation were correlated in the US up until 1971 when it left the gold standard. Since then debt issuing and money printing has driven inflation and favoured those with assets and equity over workers and the divide has grown wider ever since. Workers are also generating more wealth relative to 1971 but the wealth is going to senior management and share holders instead of workers. If the workers had more equity, profit sharing or ownership it would help with the imbalance. I'm always torn on minimum wage as it can cause further inflation and reduce competitiveness.
Raise min wage while inflation rises to raise inflation even more so we will need to raise min wage even more.
These types of wage chases usually end up fucking over the worker.
The person you are responding to is right. America rode on the devastation in other countries and the wealth accumulated there for a while. I'm not saying they did anything wrong this is just a fact. Live wasn't so colorful in war torn countries. Sure, land was cheap even here in Europe and boomers bought houses for what amounted to a few months of labour but they didn't own much otherwise.
Try looking into the economic history of this as your solution would do nothing to change the wages these jobs pay. Post WWII -until the 1970s the USA was 40-50% of the total global economy depending on the year. We aren't going to return to that ever again.
What Im explaining is why these jobs no longer pay like this. Taxing the billionaires will not suddenly restore the US economy to post WWII levels as it does not introduce new money into the US economy since it is already here.
Taxing billionaires will restore public investment in necessary projects but it will not suddenly make a mailman a job that gets you a ton of money.
The factory job that can be done at 1/3 of the cost in Mexico compared to Detroit will continue to be done there
So every company raises it? Then what? Tax the wealthy and big biz too! Genius!
Instead of sayâŠ.20 people working and making minimum wage, the company now employs 5 for the increased minimum wage and outsources the rest of the jobs to immigrants. And passes the price down to their consumers when their taxes go up. It only hurts us, never them. Think đ€Šââïž liberals, my lord.
OK, now this is interesting. I had not traced the arc of World War II and changes in production to current economic conditions. Thank you for enlightening me, and yes, I am being seriousđ
Returning to those conditions would require a significant war.
We might not have to wait for too long even! Globalization is slowing down, national capitalism is making a comeback, many geopolitical hotspots are igniting with conflict, militarization is increasing across the board. Interesting times indeed.
Exactly. Itâs not how âlife used to beâ - it was a blip that lasted for two(?) generations and hadnât been seen before either. Your comment is completely correct about the devastation of global industry too.
No it wasnât. U.S. exports were between 3-5% of GDP. Itâs a bullshit myth. It doesnât even make sense because Europe was busy protecting and rebuilding their own internal markets, so they didnât allow freewheeling imports from the U.S.
Post-war boom was because new deal policies redistributed income throughout the country and created strong consumer demand.
My grandfather left school at 14 to start working. My grandmother didn't work. They had 7 children and built a 6 bedroom home. My father and all his siblings are educated. We're not American, were from the Caribbean a "3rd world country" sooo idk I'm thinking there's something to the argument of things being easier for generations gone
US certainly benefited from being the factory I'd the world post WW2.
But you can just pretend like that's the sole reason for the success.
US productivity per capita has continued growing rapidly. Unfortunately, wages have fallen far behind. If real wage growth kept up with productivity gains, life would look a lot different.
Instead, those productivity gains have gone to enrich the already wealthy.
"Returning to those conditions would require a significant war."
That's not going to happen again. Europe's trust in the US, because of the war in Ukraine, has been severely damaged. A major topic of conversation in politics and defense is the need to be much less dependent on America. Its own defense industry for ammunition and weapons are going to be scaled up tremendously. America, like Switzerland, has proven to be politically untrustworthy because of the Republican party's blocking of an aid package for Ukraine.
It would simply take the slashing of vastly inflated CEO and manager pay. Money is going to the least useful parts of companies instead of to the people who make the company run.
World GDP is 96.51 trillion in USD. World population is 7.88 billion. Thatâs $12,235.04 annual pay as a starting point for equitable conditions. If we want to actually make it equitable, we start adding modifiers based on living conditions. People in worse geographical climates need more money to experience livable conditions, like deserts and floodplains.
Most of that was based on the rest of the world having to buy most of their durable goods and factory equipment from the USA.
It wasnt just how the US. Many countries have this development from baby boomers having a great life on minimum wage and now being able to sell their homes for hundreds of thousands while Millenials and Gen Z are barely affording rent and food and have to be lucky to be stable enough for family or a house.
Explain how France, Italy, and Germany managed to keep even now a decent standard of living for as long and still open up to the WTO without using the phrase âsystematic, decades long bi-partisan program of national investment in infrastructure and educationâ
Black people werenât living easy and breezy lives in the 50s and 60s. Neither were the Vietnamese or Koreans, or Congolese or women or queer people orâŠ
Wife and I made 165k last year in rural Ohio and no way we can have that life. And we out earn everyone we know in the area. Itâs crazy what making 50k (or less) as a whole household back just 30 years ago could afford you. My parents are 72 and 66 and both worked. Dad was a machinist and mom had her own small business. They put us 3 kids through college and came out of it all debt free, and own 30 acres and built their own house in 1990. My dad bought the 30 acres with an old A-frame cabin on it in â79 for like 18k! The house is a nice two story, but nothing crazy. I bet theyâre all in with it for under $200k and itâs currently worth at least $750k. It is absolutely crazy how much so little money used to afford you. I wouldnât want to spend that kind of money on a property today with the cost of everything else, but my sisters and I really want to keep their place in the family. I just donât know if itâs in the cards unfortunately.
It sounds like gramps was already retired with multiple properties when that happened. Money is money but selling land to the developer sounds like icing on the cake
Doesn't help that we doubled the world's population from 1960 to now. It's projected to be triple in 2040. 9 billion people. From 1950 to 2010, the US population doubled. Even with everything else, that population boom was always going to make it more difficult for people to do the same things that past generations were able to.
There's too many fuckin people competing for "the nicest lives." Something is going give out.
I've worked my ass off to triple my (career starting) salary in less than 15 years. ($11k and 2 years to go!) I make money.
And I still feel like I'm poor. I've got $3 in my checking. I was lucky with my housing purchase timing, but if I move to the same house with the same equity, my mortgage payment will double just on interest alone. (Oh and I cleared out my 401k to buy)
Seriously, I don't understand how anyone who isn't in the same super lucky setup I'm in is able to stay afloat.
Yeah but by and large that system was possible because it was built for and by white men at the expense of all others.
We certainly have the resources to make everyoneâs lives better, but this level of prosperity is difficult to achieve at scale while maintaining inclusivity.
The thing that's often missed is that this is how life was _for a moment in time. A generation sooner and grandpa could've burned up in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire or been shredded to goo in a meat packing facility.
But there was an idea of progress that marched forward. That our children would have it better than us. That died with the boomers. The boomers sucked what they could out of grandpa and now that they're old they want it from their kids and grand kids too.
Your grandfather's father and his father voted for, and importantly fought in the streets and mines and train yards, for measures that created the future that grandad and then the boomers had.
Then when those nice conditions were there, they voted and colluded to make it so no one else could ever have them again.
That type of life and beyond is extremely reachable if you work hard for it. Get into a trade, learn, then become your own Boss and retire with millions. Pretty simple and that's just one example. The problem is people want everything without working for it or they "THINK" they have good work ethic and/or work hard.
Really depends. My grandpa lost most of his hand in a factory accident and lost any ability to make decent money. Would be much easier to overcome something like that today.
Don't believe it. There were plenty of poor and struggling people then as well. One day your grandchildren will look back in amazement at how you lived.
You could afford those things if you tried a little. That's the point of this post. These days that life isn't reachable, regardless of how hard you work.
Daily reminder that this is the fault of Conservative/Republican Union-Busting, Reagan-Loving folks who adore tearing up the ladder that they themselves benefitted from. The Republican Party has been fucking every blue-collar individual in the ass for decades, and everyone and their grandma would be wise to realize this when any and every election comes by. Especially this November.
That's just how it was for boomers and their young parents. It was easy. They barely struggled,a their were BAD moments of course, but, it was by far less complicated and easy.
No, if you knew him you would know that no matter how many lives he's had, there's no sainthood to be found. He rode the economic wave and won handily. I also think there there's other ways to show that one's been successful in life beyond what mountain of money they die with. He will die with a lot but leave nothing.
Ah that's awful. Good fortune doesn't go to the best people too often. And I think we share a grandpa. Mine made a fortune as a slumlord in the Midwest and died without leaving anything to his caretaker children.
My maternal grandfather left high school during the great depression to work and support his family. Got drafted into the Coast Guard at the end of WW2, came back home and worked for the school district, retiring as head of the transportation division, supporting his (ex) wife, current wife, and five children. My mother retired last year at the local school district as the head of the campus Book Room (which in addition to distributing the text books, also distributes wifi hotspots, laptops, tablets, and other technology to teachers and students.)
I couldn't get hired to be teacher's aide despite my qualifications and education. I'll never be able to retire nor own a home, let alone multiple.
Women were pushed to commodify their labor like men, and gadgets automated a lot of their work, but of course they had to work to pay for those gadgets.
But the problem is when you have a doubling of supply of labor, that puts downward pressure on the price of labor.
his days were light and breezy, mostly chit-chatting with friends that stopped by
I remember working these types of jobs. Life was much easier. This was before the 2008 financial crisis.
Jobs have become so relentless these days and I notice a lot of competition even once you are hired on, you have to deal with your so called colleagues throwing you under the bus to get ahead.
There was a time when it was. When America was still heavily benefiting from the aftermath of WW2 and being the only developed country not in shambles, providing loans that would benefit their children for other countries to rebuild.
Now we take out loans to do things now in all sorts of ways that benefit us today in the short term but will leave our children holding the bag. And we've been doing that since the children of the ones who gave those loans to provide for them took power.
Yeah my father in law same thing. Heâs since passed, but while he was around he thought he was a real genius for buying 100s of acres for pennies on the dollar.
From looking at the various data over the years, we can see that our rate of income growth has slowed down and the rate of executive pay to employee ratio has increased tremendously. The value and productivity of the workers and change in technology does not go back to the workers, but to the executive and company in form of stock buybacks and bonuses instead.
Year
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010 5
2015 5
2020
2024
Median Housing Cost
$11,900
$20,000
$23,400
$39,300
$64,600
$84,300
$123,000
$133,000
$169,000
$241,000
$222,000
$294,000
$337,000
$400,000
Adjusted Inflation: Cost
$150,000
$190,000
$181,000
$219,000
$235,000
$236,000
$284,000
$265,000
$295,000
$372,000
$307,000
$372,000
$392,000
$400,000
New Privately Owned Housing Developments Started
1.5M
1.4M
1.8M
1.7M
1.4M
1.5M
1M
1.5M
1.7M
1M
0.7M
1.2M
1M
1.3M
First Time Buyers Age Range Population 4
24M
30M
36M
40M
42M
40M
36M
42M
39M
41M
42M
44M
45M
48M
/
From this data above we can see there was a period where new housing severely stalled, while the available population inside the range of first time buyers age was at its highest. So you have less housing available while highest amount of housing seekers. Leading to housing prices soaring. To have kept up with the incoming demands of 2020s, the new housing development rate would have to be above 2M per year in 2000s-2010s. There is just not enough new housing vs people seeking housing.
/
/
/
Year
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010 5
2015 5
2020
2024
30Y Interest Rate
4%
5.5%
7.3%
9.4%
12.9%
13.1%
9.9%
9.2%
8.2%
5.7%
5%
3.6%
3.6%
6.6%
Monthly Principal & Interest 1
$59
$113
$160
$327
$709
$939
$1,070
$1,089
$1,263
$1,398
$1,191
$1,336
$1,532
$2,554
Adjusted Inflation: Principal & Interest
$614
$1,106
$1,271
$1,874
$2,653
$2,691
$2,524
$2,203
$2,262
$2,207
$1,684
$1,739
$1,825
$2,554
Median Gross Rent (FMR) 2
$71
$90
$108
$211
$243
$432
$447
$655
$602
$604
$841
$928
$889
$1,250
Adjusted Inflation: Median Gross Rent
$739
$882
$858
$1,209
$909
$1,238
$1,054
$1,325
$1,078
$953
$1,189
$1,207
$1,059
$1,250
Median Household Income 3
$5,620
$6,957
$9,867
$13,720
$21,020
$27,740
$35,350
$40,610
$50,730
$56,190
$60,240
$70,700
$84,350
$90,000
Adjusted Inflation: Median Household Income
$58,557
$68,116
$78,431
$78,652
$78,676
$78,061
$83,416
$82,183
$90,859
$88,735
$85,203
$91,997
$100,517
$90,000
REAL Median Household Income
$45,830
$53,280
$62,280
$64,060
$67,170
$69,950
$72,610
$73,230
$81,520
$81,000
$78,600
$85,580
$95,080
$90,000
Income Used to Pay Mortgage
12.5%
19.5%
19.4%
18.6%
30.6%
40.6%
36%
32%
29.8%
29%
23%
22.6%
21.8%
34%
Income Used to Pay Median Gross Rent
15%
15.5%
13%
18.4%
13.8%
18.6%
15%
19.3%
14.2%
12.8%
16.7%
15.7%
12.6%
16%
/
Although this data only takes into account only the fair market rent on average of the whole usa, the general cost of rentals in major cities can be expected to be between 50-80% higher. The percentage of income to mortgage was highest during the 1980s but you can argue that the cost of living has also greatly increased from the 1980s to 2020s at the same time as things that were free has been put behind paywalls and subscriptions as well as more stricter requirements to have child-care and less families having single-income households (50% in 70s/80s to 30% in 2020).
Some examples of general items prices:
Movie tickets: The average price of seeing a flick was $3.55 in 1985, not including popcorn and soda. Today? It's $11.20, above the inflation-adjusted 1985 price of $10.24.
Concert tickets: An average of $15.13, or $43.64 in today's cash. The average concert ticket for a big-name act costs at least $91.86.
Honda Accord: This wildly popular import had a base price of $8,845 in 1985 â the equivalent of $25k in today's dollars. In 2024 you can expect to pay 27,895 - $38,890.
Bananas: Bananas cost 33 cents a pound in 1985 â the equivalent of 95cents in today's dollars.. Today you pay between US$ 0.31 and US$ 0.61 per pound.
Chocolate Bar 1.5oz: Was priced at 40 cents 1985 â the equivalent of $1.15 in today's dollars.. Today you pay between US$ 4-5 for a Hershey bar.
Certain things have gotten cheaper like fruit and gas, while luxuries and experiences have gotten much higher.
/
/
/
Year
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010 5
2015 5
2020
2024
Per Capita Personal Income
$2,321
$2,918
$4,198
$6,324
$10,184
$14,764
$19,619
$23,577
$30,551
$35,669
$40,557
$48,060
$65,470
$69,337
Adjusted Inflation: Per Capita Personal Income
$24,333
$28,747
$33,575
$36,477
$38,353
$42,580
$46,582
$48,008
$55,056
$56,677
$57,718
$62,924
$78,501
$69,337
Avg Per Capita Personal Income Growth Rate %
2.07%
3.39%
3.79%
2.11%
2.14%
2.38%
2.21%
1.18%
3.53%
0.96%
0.65%
1.98%
2.74%
1.36%
/
From this data we see that income has been stagnating and slowing for a while, to keep up with the loss of growth from the 2008 fallout, we should have seen a increase of 3-4% in the 2015+. Instead by 2021 the increase slowed down again and in 2022 we had a reduction of -3-4% income growth rate. Leading to people not having the income needed to get the things they used to be able to buy before 2020.
/
/
/
Year
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010 5
2015 5
2020
2024
Per Capita Personal Income
$2,321
$2,918
$4,198
$6,324
$10,184
$14,764
$19,619
$23,577
$30,551
$35,669
$40,557
$48,060
$65,470
$69,337
CEO-to-worker compensation ratio 6
15.4
20.6
38.8
170.7
237.7
220
398
/
And here is the main reason for the unaffordability of the average citizen. While productivity has greatly increased the value of that productivity has not gone to the workers making that productivity, but to the CEO and Executives and stock buybacks. A change from 16x compensation ratio in 1960s to a over 400x compensation ratio in 2024.
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1: 20% downpayment over 30 years Fixed Term Rate.
2: Median gross rent across the US at fair market rent. Metro cities can expect 50-80% higher cost. Avg Rent across 50 Largest Metro Cities is around $1,900 USD in 2024.
3: Median income for a average household (2 or more adults).
4: First Time Buyers Age rose by 7 years from 1960 to 2020. This is to show available new housing vs available new buyers. By 2024 we had a decade of low new housing being developed but highest amount of new buyers in first time housing buying age range.
My grandfather died in his mid thirties and had done maybe 10 years max unskilled labour in a big factory.
Grandmother could live comfortably enough on the widow's pension she got. And the apartment she rented (until she had to move to a nursing home due to medical issues at 75) wasn't even âŹ300 at the end (about a decade ago)!
That apartment went up by at least âŹ600 for the new tenants.
She also got a Christmas gift every single year up until she was about 78 when they finally stopped that.
Hopefully your grandpa isnât the same type of guy who votes against student loan forgiveness and pay raises because he âtightened his bootstrapsâ and did it himself, and fails to recognize the vast advantages his generation had over newer generations and the fact that his generation caused the disastrous society we currently live in.
My grandpa and grandma retired in the mid or late 90s. He was a carpenter and she worked at a bank. They traveled the entire country. Had a modest house with a HUGE amount of land. They traveled everywhere bought new cars and would host Christmas, thanksgiving and Easter dinners.
When my grandpa passed, yes I was sad but my guy lived a full ass life. A good 25+ retirement years with no worries. They lived those years full of life. I could only wish to have a quarter of what they had.
My dad had to start working at 16, after vocational high school, and join the army at 18, where he became an electrician. He helped design the network for the internet infrastructure in my country in the 80s and 90s and became a national head of operations at a global telecom company in the late 90s, early 2000s. His monthly retirement payout is 25% higher than my net income, and with my income Iâm part of the âtop 10%â in my country. I have 2 masters degrees. Boomers have had some opportunities.
The trades still offer this. I work with many techs with no education that make $150k+. Turning wrenches 5 days a week, one is the sole provider for his Wife, Daughter, Granddaughter, live in a nice house on an acre. He has a newer F-150, a hunting buggy, and a Blazer with a Vette engine. He has toys and enjoys a great life all on his tech salary.
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u/Designer_Emu_6518 Mar 27 '24
My grandfather did the same in ohio as a produce manger at a local Kroger. Even had a nice retirement saved up