- My Forums
- Tiger Rant
- LSU Recruiting
- SEC Rant
- Saints Talk
- Pelicans Talk
- More Sports Board
- Fantasy Sports
- Golf Board
- Soccer Board
- O-T Lounge
- Tech Board
- Home/Garden Board
- Outdoor Board
- Health/Fitness Board
- Movie/TV Board
- Book Board
- Music Board
- Political Talk
- Money Talk
- Fark Board
- Gaming Board
- Travel Board
- Food/Drink Board
- Ticket Exchange
- TD Help Board
Customize My Forums- View All Forums
- Show Left Links
- Topic Sort Options
- Trending Topics
- Recent Topics
- Active Topics
Started By
Message
re: I'm sick of people saying the middle class is worse off than 4 decades ago.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 10:01 am to ShortyRob
Posted on 3/14/17 at 10:01 am to ShortyRob
quote:
Household income has been dropping recently even though wages, while not great, have gone up.
Looking back at my post regarding marriage rates, do you grasp it yet?
Here. I'll help.
If you had 100 people. Each make 1000 a year. There are 50 men and 50 women. They're all married.
What's the household income?
Now, make 25 of them get divorced.
Change nothing else.
Tell me their household income.
1 person makes 1k a year. A married couple makes 2k /yr joint. There household income is 2k.
50 couples* 2k = 100k total population income
50 couples @ 2k/yr household income = 100k married pop
25 men @ 1k/yr household = 25k
25 woment @ 1k/yr household = 25k
Total single pop household income = 50k
The total population income is still 100k
However, the 25 men and women who divorced saw their household income drop 50%.
So you are implying that divorce is the number one contributor to economic downfall?
edited: math error
This post was edited on 3/14/17 at 10:06 am
1
Posted on 3/14/17 at 10:03 am to ShortyRob
quote:
OK. Well, given that........perhaps you might consider wondering why those well off folks in 1970 had a lower rate of ownership of virtually any luxury item you can think of. I mean, I don't think you can come up with 1 where that won't be the case.
Think about that economically.
Larger majority of single income couples.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 10:03 am to llfshoals
quote:Generations of Americans accustomed themselves to doing better than their parents, and bettering their family situations. They grew to expect a bigger slice of pie, as it were.
As someone who has been paying taxes and trying to support a family for those 4 decades....You're full of shite.
That is all fine and good as long as the pie keeps growing. With few exceptions, (the 1930's, 1970's, and 2007-present) our national economic pie grew at least as fast as Americans' collective expectation for a bigger piece.
Unfortunately when the pie doesn't grow, as for example in obamanomics, the perception is that my bigger piece means someone else's piece is smaller, and vice versa.
So we can satisfy ourselves with fighting over how big the other guy's piece should be, or we can support every measure possible to grow the pie.
Meanwhile, in terms of the middle class, there is simply no question today's middle class is better off. We've run the comparisons many times here. Groceries cost far less relative to income. Homes are larger and nicer. The ratio of cars per household is higher. Trips abroad were nearly unheard of in yesterday's middle class. Now they are not uncommon.
All those items have become expectations rather than exceptions. So families spend to attain them. Some spend too much. But they do so by choice.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 10:12 am to NC_Tigah
Abdolute consumption per capita is higher. Consumption relative to the overall economy is lower. Both of your sentiments are correct. We are better off than our parents BUT not as better off as we should be.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 10:18 am to HailHailtoMichigan!
quote:
It's simply an asinine assertion. Sure, some big things such as education and health care are more expensive, but 99% of the goods we consume on a daily basis are by an order of magnitude cheaper.
If you are speaking about durable goods like your list provides, that is true. But overall, the cost of things like shelter and vehicle have gone up and in the case of shelter even with low interest rates on the home owner end it makes it harder because overall even despite the 2008-2009 housing meltdown home prices have been on an ever increasing trend and salaries when adjusted for inflation stay flat
Posted on 3/14/17 at 10:33 am to 50_Tiger
We also have more bills today than we did in 1970
We pay more for phones
We pay for TV
We have the internet
We have a greater unsecured debt load today...credit card bills....I think to the tune of about 6K for every living person in this country....that's money that after a while gives you no benefit when considering the depreciation of most durable goods purchased on credit.
College loan payments ( they were not all that common in 1970) very common now.
We also eat out more. Think about this if you go to choke and puke like Applebees or Chili's with you, your wife and your 2.13 kids that's 50.00 right there(minimum)...that's leaving out any appetizers. We do that as a society at least once a week. The same amount of money at a grocery store could feed the same family for at least three days.
We pay more for phones
We pay for TV
We have the internet
We have a greater unsecured debt load today...credit card bills....I think to the tune of about 6K for every living person in this country....that's money that after a while gives you no benefit when considering the depreciation of most durable goods purchased on credit.
College loan payments ( they were not all that common in 1970) very common now.
We also eat out more. Think about this if you go to choke and puke like Applebees or Chili's with you, your wife and your 2.13 kids that's 50.00 right there(minimum)...that's leaving out any appetizers. We do that as a society at least once a week. The same amount of money at a grocery store could feed the same family for at least three days.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 10:42 am to KiwiHead
quote:
We pay more for phones
And we mostly use these phones for things other than voice calls. We willingly pay more because they do more. But our quality of life is so much better than it ever has been, that we are willing to pay more to be entertained and misinformed by content on these "phones".
quote:
We pay for TV
We pay for more content than we ever had available before. We could still get content for free. But our quality of life is so much better than it ever has been, that we are willing to pay more to be entertained and misinformed on these "TVs".
quote:
We have the internet
See above
Posted on 3/14/17 at 10:44 am to Willie Stroker
(no message)
Posted on 3/14/17 at 10:45 am to 50_Tiger
quote:I'm merely pointing out that a lower marriage rate results in lower household income for the same population if it had a higher marriage rate.
So you are implying that divorce is the number one contributor to economic downfall?
Also, note. It isn't just divorce. People just don't get married at the same rate now as in 1970.
Hence, my bottom line point is, you can't compare household incomes for two different time periods without accounting for differences in the makeup of those households. The household data lone isn't sufficient for comparison.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 11:25 am to ShortyRob
quote:And yet my bacon is much more expensive.
quote:
As someone who has been paying taxes and trying to support a family for those 4 decades....You're full of shite.
4 decades ago, if you wanted to tell HTM that, you'd have had to send him a letter. Hand written. With a stamp.
Now, you can tell him 1000 times in the same time frame........for less money than sending HTM that one hand written letter.
My bacon is way more important.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 12:13 pm to Willie Stroker
quote:
We willingly pay more because they do more. But our quality of life is so much better than it ever has been, that we are willing to pay more to be entertained and misinformed by content on these "phones".
That is what I am talking about....we pay more. We did not pay for this type of thing like we do now in 1970. We pay for it because we perceive a tangible benefit....same with TV and internet. In 1970 we got our daily info on TV for basically free each night but we had only 3 choices. We also paid 10 cents for the daily paper.
We do spend more for more tings. Not saying that is a bad thing, but it all comes at a cost. My point is that we are paying for more things...we consider some of these things somewhat of a necessity , they are really disposable income expenditures as compared to the basics.
Biggest problem is the dead money we pay on revolving lines of credit.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 1:05 pm to League Champs
quote:
And where do you think hes getting his 1000+ comparison from. Those older homes that haven't changed any in 40 yrs
In Austin, they demo them and build them bigger, but not quite as big as suburbia.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 3:01 pm to Teddy Ruxpin
So, bottom line of the detractors in this thread.
Their thesis is basically this. "People in 2017 are more challenged economically than those in 1970". The why of their argument isn't a big deal for this post.
You see, the problem with trying to use comparative data is that you'll endlessly talk about data that has too many variables to deal with.
A better way to evaluate is simply to look at the choices the people who actually lived the situations make or made.
With that.
1)People in 1970 had a lower rate of home ownership
2)People in 1970 had a FAR lower rate of car ownership
3)People in 1970 made FAR fewer purchases of luxury items available to them in their day.
1)Demand today not only drives higher homeownership rates but, those homes are 1000sf larger with far more non-essential luxuries like granite countertops.
2)Demand today drives not only a higher rate of car purchases but purchases of cars that cost far more even after cost of living. It isn't as if people today are prevented from buying less expensive cars. They could. But, they don't. If they genuinely were worse off than in 1970, the streets would be flooded with Nissan Versas, not SUVs.
3)Demand today not only drives purchase of cell phones, but purchases of the nicest phones possible AND, REPEATED purchases of upgraded phones when your 2010 phone would do you just fine. You might be able to argue a cell plan is a necessity but you damned sure can't argue a cell plan with max data on the newest iPhone is.
If you want to measure how well people are doing, stop trying to count dollars. Their BEHAVIOR will tell you.
Their thesis is basically this. "People in 2017 are more challenged economically than those in 1970". The why of their argument isn't a big deal for this post.
You see, the problem with trying to use comparative data is that you'll endlessly talk about data that has too many variables to deal with.
A better way to evaluate is simply to look at the choices the people who actually lived the situations make or made.
With that.
1)People in 1970 had a lower rate of home ownership
2)People in 1970 had a FAR lower rate of car ownership
3)People in 1970 made FAR fewer purchases of luxury items available to them in their day.
1)Demand today not only drives higher homeownership rates but, those homes are 1000sf larger with far more non-essential luxuries like granite countertops.
2)Demand today drives not only a higher rate of car purchases but purchases of cars that cost far more even after cost of living. It isn't as if people today are prevented from buying less expensive cars. They could. But, they don't. If they genuinely were worse off than in 1970, the streets would be flooded with Nissan Versas, not SUVs.
3)Demand today not only drives purchase of cell phones, but purchases of the nicest phones possible AND, REPEATED purchases of upgraded phones when your 2010 phone would do you just fine. You might be able to argue a cell plan is a necessity but you damned sure can't argue a cell plan with max data on the newest iPhone is.
If you want to measure how well people are doing, stop trying to count dollars. Their BEHAVIOR will tell you.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 3:10 pm to ShortyRob
Here's one for ya.
68% of Americans in 2016 owned a smartphone. Up from 35% in 2012.
45% own some form of tablet(that shite ain't NECESSARY).
So, tell me again about how put upon the middle class in America is again?
People in 1970 were fricking hanging their clothes on a clothes line rather than buying a washing machine but you want me to believe that they were better off than us folks in 2017 where about half of us own a damned tablet, a third of us have bought smart phones in the last 4 years and 2/3rds of us have SMARTphones!
This is why the whole "declining middle class" thing is so much bull shite. All you need to do to figure out it's bull shite is walk outside.
68% of Americans in 2016 owned a smartphone. Up from 35% in 2012.
45% own some form of tablet(that shite ain't NECESSARY).
So, tell me again about how put upon the middle class in America is again?
People in 1970 were fricking hanging their clothes on a clothes line rather than buying a washing machine but you want me to believe that they were better off than us folks in 2017 where about half of us own a damned tablet, a third of us have bought smart phones in the last 4 years and 2/3rds of us have SMARTphones!
This is why the whole "declining middle class" thing is so much bull shite. All you need to do to figure out it's bull shite is walk outside.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 3:12 pm to ShortyRob
Oh. And 40% of Americans own a fricking dedicated video gaming console.
Yeah. They're sucking hard.
Yeah. They're sucking hard.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 3:23 pm to ShortyRob
I think the biggest difference in the middle class then and now is disposable income and debt. The average middle class now is carrying more debt than they did in the 70's due to the amount disposable income.
So the middle class is worse off than 4 decades ago.
So the middle class is worse off than 4 decades ago.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 3:28 pm to graves1
quote:it's like you didn't even read my post. Literally nothing about the behavior of people today versus the behavior of people in the seventies tends to support your claim. Just declaring it to be so doesn't make it so
I think the biggest difference in the middle class then and now is disposable income and debt. The average middle class now is carrying more debt than they did in the 70's due to the amount disposable income.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 3:40 pm to ShortyRob
My point about disposable income being the rise in insurance. Weather it be health, car, or home have all gone up faster than the average middle class salary. Which leads to less disposable income. Which leads to more debt. And that is just insurance rates. Could say that about most necessities.
As far as behavior, in the 70's you paid cash more often because you had more disposable income.
As far as behavior, in the 70's you paid cash more often because you had more disposable income.
Posted on 3/14/17 at 4:11 pm to graves1
quote:
point about disposable income being the rise in insurance. Weather it be health, car, or home have all gone up faster than the average middle class salary. Which leads to less disposable income. Which leads to more debt. And that is just insurance rates. Could say that about most necessities.
As far as behavior, in the 70's you paid cash more often because you had more disposable income.
Is that what you call a rebuttal? Simply restating refuted claims?
Posted on 3/14/17 at 5:22 pm to ShortyRob
There is not rebuttal to your misguided claim. You claim that because the middle class has a few luxury items they are better off.
I grew up in the all american middle class neighborhood in the 70's. Not one single family used a clothesline to dry their clothes. Every one of my friends had an Atari. Color television set in every bedroom.
If we use your measure for being better off, then there is very little poverty in this country.
I grew up in the all american middle class neighborhood in the 70's. Not one single family used a clothesline to dry their clothes. Every one of my friends had an Atari. Color television set in every bedroom.
If we use your measure for being better off, then there is very little poverty in this country.
Page 12 of 13
Back to top
Follow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News