The US and the world are far better off today than we were twenty, forty, or sixty years ago.

[TheWraith]

I realize this clashes with the common sentiment that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, but frankly that's just not true, and I'm rather tired of it. By virtually every standard, not only is society not slipping towards inevitable decline the way some people seem to insist, but the US and the world are far better off than we have been in the past. There's a nearly universal human tendency to glorify the past, and we lefties are far from immune. I can't count the number of times I've seen people point at the 1950s or 1960s as being some time of universal prosperity that we've lost.

The reality back then wasn't so glossy: if you were a black man, you could count on working for a third of the wage a white man got, with few to no protections. If you were gay, you could count on being universally shunned or institutionalized unless you hid your entire life. One third of American homes in the mid-1950s didn't have full indoor plumbing, and if you were poor, no one was going to help you.

Today, the median wage in the US is higher than it ever has been before, adjusted for inflation. The average person makes 20% more money than they would have in 1975, and almost 60% more than in 1955, adjusted for inflation.

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

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

Violent crime is lower than it's been in almost 50 years, down a third from it's height in 1993.

Society is more enlightened and tolerant than at any previous point in history.

If you're poor, you have a far better support system to help you through it than in previous decades, with Medicaid, SCHIP, TANF, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

The average standard of living is higher than ever before, with even the working poor being assured of things like full plumbing--which as recently as the mid-1950s, a third of American homes didn't have--heat, light, clean water, and even a few "luxuries."

More people in more places are freer than ever before, ranging from places like Egypt and Libya where the people finally have the opportunity to determine their own fate, to right here at home where if you're black, or gay, or Jewish, or anything, you have a greater chance at respect and dignity than ever before.

Yes, we have problems. Yes, unemployment sucks. I should know, I've been salaried for just two months since the beginning of 2009. Yes, we have more priorities and more work that can make things better, like cheaper healthcare, better Wall Street regulation, a higher minimum wage, etcetera.

But I for one object in the strongest terms to this negative and defeatist attitude that somehow either the US or civilization in general are in decline or hopelessly out of control, when an objective assessment shows exactly the opposite. Problems don't get solved by wailing and gnashing our teeth. Problems get solved by dedicated, energized people, who understand that it's hard, slow work to change things, but also know that everything eventually gets better, even when hitting setbacks like recessions, Republicans, and other unsavory things.

I for one intend to help continue the upward trend that this country has been following. Who's with me?

[libinnyandia]

1. Do we credit the 1%ers?

[Amonester]

2. Climate-change, species-extinction denial, much?

Just asking.

[Fumesucker]

4. Resource depletion, peak oil, the list is pretty long..

[NRaleighLiberal]

6. crumbling infrastructure.....extreme political gridlock/polarization...

[Amonester]

7. Ozone layer hole expansion, coral reef agony, ocean acidification

floating plastic trash islands...

Yep. We effectively are in better shape. :sarcasm:

[TheWraith]

9. DDT, Vietnam, Cold War...

Slavery, north versus south, civil war...

Black plague, feudalism, crusades...

Listing problems isn't an argument; you could use the exact same tactic of dwelling on negativity to make people think that ice cream sucks, or FDR was a shitty President. In objective terms, we ARE better off.

[Fumesucker]

19. Peace Dividend

Amazing how fast that disappeared from the radar, isn't it?

[Downwinder]

48. Polio vaccine free in the park.

[Angry Dragon]

3. ..............

:popcorn: :woohoo: :shrug:

[randome]

5. Misery loves company.

Thanks for putting things in perspective.

[Modern_Matthew]

8. Yeah, but certainly not at a quick enough rate. nt

[jaxx]

10. Count me in, I refuse to give in to the negativity.

Thanks for the perspective.

K&R

[PETRUS]

11. It bothers me when people glorify the past, too.

But it's good to critique current conditions and work towards improvement.

And while some things, by some measures, have improved, others have not. You speak of trends, which is appropriate. Your analysis relies on snapshots of some economic data, but the current trend is worrisome. Inequality is increasing (and more people are slipping into poverty). According to social scientists who do comparisons across time and place, increases in inequality produce more crime, less social mobility, poorer health, and worse educational performance.

[RKP5637]

12. Having lived back then, I think today is better in many ways, but of course far from

perfect.

[Umbral]

13. 1 earth, divided by 7 billion people... gee, things are only looking up. nt

[marmar]

14. But things won't get better if we keep propping up an unsustainable system.

nt

[canetoad]

36. You win the thread

For daring to mention Sustainability.

Infinite economic growth is not sustainable. Plundering irreplacable resouces is not sustainable. Unchecked population growth is not sustainable.

Maybe the 'ordinary' person lives longer, makes more money, has more comforts. This has been offset by a corresponding rise in the gap between rich and poor as the efforts to eke higher profits from diminishing resources is exploited.

[BOG PERSON]

15. optimism is the opium of the masses

[TheWraith]

29. And pessimism is cyanide.

Also, you might want to actually re-read Marx. When he referred to religion as the opiate of the masses, he wasn't saying that as an insult. He meant it in the vein of it providing a ray of light and something to make people's hard lives easier to bear. Personally, I think hope for the future is even better.

[holdencaufield]

16. You're right, of course...

... by all measurable metrics, things are better overall today than at any time in the past.

-- Life expectancy around the world (and in the US) is at an all time high.
-- Wages as a percentage of basic goods and services -- also at an all time high.
-- Literacy, leisure time, education options, lifestyle options -- all higher than at any other time

Of course, walking around with a smile on your face and whistling "zippity-do-dah" will make you very unpopular with the people who are "concerned" about this, that or the other thing.

Sure, there are predicted clouds on the horizon -- aren't there always? Remember when over-population was supposed to kill us all by 1990 (David Erlich), or North America was supposed to be a sheet of ice by 2000 (Lowell Ponte, Cesare Emiliani), Acid rain, nuclear winter... the list goes on.

Peak Oil? Hubbert predicted a global collapse due to peak oil no later than 1970 -- and he never accounted for the gradual transition from fuel oil to petroleum gas (which is significantly more abundant than fuel oil)

Species extinction? Besides being GROSSLY over exaggerated (rates of extinctions predicted in the 1980's would have seen half the species on earth gone by now -- that didn't happen), new species are being discovered at a higher rate than at any time in the past 17,000 non-microbial species discovered in 2006 alone.

Climate Change? Of course the climate is changing -- climate does that. The Earth has been warming pretty consistently for roughly 15,000 years now. Notice the complete lack of glaciers in Texas these days. Climate change is significantly more complex than most people are willing to admit and there are no suitably accurate predictors of what change will bring. No Virginia, it isn't just about CO2. However, since human beings have adapted to natural climate changes worse than those predicted by the current models in the past (see Little Ice Age), I'm confident that human ingenuity, and human adaptability will mean not only survival, but a continuation of prosperity.

So, buck up -- go outside, fire up your iPod and enjoy the day... it's going to be a good one.

[JohnyCanuck]

27. I think you are mistaken about Hubbert's prediciton

holdencaufield wrote: Peak Oil? Hubbert predicted a global collapse due to peak oil no later than 1970 -- and he never accounted for the gradual transition from fuel oil to petroleum gas (which is significantly more abundant than fuel oil).

To my knowledge Hubbert never predicted a peak oil induced global collapse by 1970. He did however predict US oil production would peak between the years 1969 and 1971 and in this he was correct.

Hubbert's third prophecy
by Gary Flomenhoft

(A timely guest post from Gary. Hubbert was right. Again.
- Dmitry Orlov)

In light of recent events such as the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street I thought it would be pertinent to review Hubbert's Third Prophecy about the cultural crisis he expected. He wrote about it in the article entitled "Exponential Growth as a Transient Phenomenon in Human History". In case you are not familiar with Hubbert's first two prophecies, he predicted both the US and world oil peak very accurately.

In 1956 Hubbert predicted the US oil peak would be sometime between 1969 and 1971. For this he was ridiculed and laughed off the face of the earth (almost). Turned out the US oil peak was in 1970. This is something the drill-baby-drill, it's all the environmentalists' fault, ditto heads don't know anything about.

Next in 1974 Hubbert predicted the world oil peak to happen about 1998. However he DID say that if OPEC were to restrict the supply, then the peak would be delayed by 10-15 years which would put it at 2008-2013, or exactly right. Here is what Hubbert's prediction (to scale by MBPD) looks like overlayed onto a reasonably close estimate of the actual global oil peak which started in 2005 and has continued as a plateau up to now.

OK, now is anyone willing to make a bet that Hubbert's THIRD prophecy is wrong? Didn't think so. Here it is:



Hubbert said, "The third curve (on the left) is simply the mathematical curve for exponential growth. No physical quantity can follow this curve for more than a brief period of time. However, a sum of money, being of a nonphysical nature and growing according to the rules of compound interest at a fixed interest rate, can follow that curve indefinitely...Our principle constraints are cultural...we have evolved a culture so heavily dependent upon the continuance of exponential growth for its stability that it is incapable of reckoning with problems of non-growth...it behooves us...to begin a serious examination of the...cultural adjustments necessary...before unmanageable crises arise..."

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2011/11/hubberts-third-prophecy.html

And as far as natural gas goes, it's starting to look like it might not be as plentiful as the TV ads imply.

Not so much: Shale gas shows its limitations
by Kurt Cobb

Though the ads will probably not be withdrawn or recut, the emerging facts run counter to the gleeful tone of this television commercial produced by America's Natural Gas Alliance, a consortium of shale gas drillers. (For some more samples from other advertisers, click here, here and here.) First, it has become increasingly apparent from actual well data that shale gas is not being harvested according to the much-touted "manufacturing model." This model assumes that shale deposits are basically uniform, or at least uniform enough that a driller could sink a well virtually anywhere in a shale gas deposit and have an economical well blasting out methane.

snip

Berman and Pittinger also point out that initial high flow rates give out within a couple of years, putting drillers on a treadmill merely to replace this declining production and implying geometric increases in the number of wells they must drill to grow production consistently. What's more, the two authors question claims of decades-long flows, albeit at very low rates, from individual wells. The history of shale gas wells to date suggests that this is unlikely, at best, and almost certainly uneconomical.

The second shoe to drop was a piece in The New York Times entitled "Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush" which cited internal memos and emails from industry and government officials admitting that estimates of the available gas from shale are overblown.

The third piece of damning news came from a recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessment of the Marcellus Shale natural gas deposits, by far the largest of their kind in the United States spanning vast areas of New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia as well as sections of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Previously, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, had estimated that the Marcellus Shale contained 410 trillion cubic feet of so-called "technically recoverable shale gas resources." (This says nothing about whether such resources can be economically recovered. See the discussion of natural gas prices below.) The USGS report put the technically recoverable amount at 84 trillion cubic feet, an 80 percent reduction. For reference, the United States consumed about 24 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2010.

http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2011/10/not-so-much-shale-gas-shows-its.html

[dimbear]

17. Ask yourself how credible these claims are...........

"Today, the median wage in the US is higher than it ever has been before, adjusted for inflation. The average person makes 20% more money than they would have in 1975, and almost 60% more than in 1955, adjusted for inflation."

????

If this were so, how would one account for the actual fact that a single wage earner in 1955 could support a family, while that is usually impossible today?

Things seem bleak because they are.

Government inflation estimates are worthy of no trust whatever.

Just my 2 cents, or 2 dollars in 1955 prices.

[TheWraith]

20. If you refuse to accept certain things as basis of facts, it's hard to have a discussion.

But to reply your question, the answer is a much lower standard of living back then. Again, back in the mid-1950s, one third of American homes didn't have full plumbing. Only about 40% had a car. Few TVs, no cable, no cell phones, houses much smaller than today, etcetera.

By the way, it's not just me pointing this out: Paul Krugman dedicated an entire column some years back to pointing out that someone who was middle class in the 1950s would be considered working poor today, primarily because our standard of living has increased.

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ratrace.html

[Occulus]

25. So you're suggesting people who can't afford those things give them up.

Am I correct?

[TheWraith]

28. Where did I say that?

If you wanted to support an entire family on a single salary, I'm sure you could do it by going back to a 1950s standard of living, though I don't imagine anyone would actually WANT to. It was, frankly, not a very good standard of living.

[raccoon]

87. I can agree with some of what you're saying, Wraith. I lived back

in those times and in my family and most families I knew we did have a lower standard of living than
now. People didn't have nearly as much "Stuff."

However, one thing is definitely not as good as yesteryear: The employment picture.
It's becoming harder and harder to get health insurance through your employer. Or a full-time
job with benes.

IME and IMO, in each succeeding decade, there are more and more temp jobs with no benes and
fewer and fewer full-time jobs with benes.

[dmallind]

21. And if we all lived in 1955 houses with 1955 amenities most could now nt

[doc03]

35. A single wage earner today could support a family if he

lived the same lifestyle he did in 1955. In 1955 you may have had a 21" black and white TV, a coal furnace you had to fire in the middle of the night, heated hot water on the stove for a bath, you had a party line (for you youngsters that's a land-line shared by several other families). You may have had a late model car fully loaded (AM radio and heater that is). Back in 1955 it was unheard of for a middle class working family to have a Harley, a 4x4 pickup, a 4 wheeler, a boat and camper. They still make 21" TVs but no we have to keep up with the Joneses and have a 65" TV. A cell phone you pay $80 a month for. You can still pick up a few channels with an antenna but now we need to pay $80 for cable and another $60 for internet. In 1955 the average family home was something like 1000 square feet, today the average home is more like 2000 square feet or more and families are smaller.
Well yea if you have to have all of those things you need two wage earners to live. I know one thing I would rather be living in 1955 than in today's world.

[Romulox]

37. LOL at the "coal furnance you had to fire in the middle of the night, heated hot water on the stove"

You're being ridiculous. 1950. Not 1850. My house was built in 1936, and the wiring and plumbing was here from the start. :eyes: :hi:

[doc03]

42. I was 7 years old in 1955 and we had a coal furnace, no water

heater. We did have cold water plumbing and electric wiring. My dad had a good paying middle class union job as an electrician in a steel mill. My grandmother in West Virginia had a hand water pump in the yard, an outhouse and a gas heater in each room. Still remember those gas fumes today.

[Romulox]

49. OK, but you were an outlier. I live in 1930s circa tract housing. Gas, water, electric all standard.

This is the sort of home I live in (this is not my home.) These are not extravagant or atypical for their era.



"My grandmother in West Virginia had a hand water pump in the yard"

West Virginia is one of the poorest parts of the country, even today. Hardly emblematic of how the average person lived or lives.

[doc03]

55. Even in by WV standards today the average middle class

family has it better than a the middle class anywhere in 1955. How much you think a coal miner makes?

[Romulox]

60. Right. But the average Detroiter is doing MUCH, MUCH worse. That's the point.

It's possible that WV has pulled ahead at the same time much of the rest of the country is falling behind.

"How much you think a coal miner makes?"

Do you think that bears much on the question of whether most people had running water...in the 1950s? I don't.

[WildNovember]

66. The median house size in 1973 was 1525 ft2. In 2010 it was 2169 ft2.

The increase is 644 ft2, or a 42% increase.

http://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf


The median price of a home has increased from $29.9 K in 1973 to $218.2K in January 2010.

http://www.census.gov/const/uspricemon.pdf


In 2010 dollars, that's from 145,000 to $218,000, a 50% increase.

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


1973 median male income as a percent of median 1973 house price:

All male workers median income = $8453 = 28%

Full-time male workers median income = $11,800 = 39%

Table F: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-097.pdf


2010 median male income as a percent of median 2010 house price:

All male workers median income = $32,137 = 14.7%

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/2010/P05AR_2010.xls

Full-time male workers median income = $50,063 = 22.9%

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/ Table P-36


Yes, possibly with our 2010 median income we could buy a 1973 median house more easily than a 2010 median house. But you don't see the sleight of hand there?

Even if we bought a 1973 house today, that house costs more per square foot than the 1973 version, while median male income is LOWER in real terms.


In real terms, for all races, men & women, median income is $4923 more than it was in 1974.

Housing, taxes, college & medical care have gone up more than 23% in the same period -- as have childcare costs for working families -- as have social problems in communities where both parents must do family duty on top of work.

[Romulox]

68. The first stat represents NEW homes completed in those years, not ALL homes. BIG difference.

Most of us live in homes that were built before 2010. Many of us live in homes built before 1973, too!

[WildNovember]

72. Not sure why. The data shows new homes built since 1973, which is the change in

in the housing stock since 1973.

[Romulox]

85. OK. But the fact that they were building McMansions in 2010 doesn't say much about EXISTING housing

As I've mentioned, my home was built in the 1930s, for example.

[WildNovember]

70. The poster's rosy post conflates median and average & ignores the fine picture.

1974 per capita income, 2010 dollars: $17,725
2010 per capita income, 2010 dollars: $26,062 (+8337 = +47%)

1974 median income, all races & sexes, 2010 dollars: $21,274
2010 median income, all races & sexes, 2010 dollars: $26,197 (+ $4923 = +23%)

1974 median income, men, all races, 2010 dollars: $33,703
2010 median income, men, all races, 2010 dollars: $32,137 (- $1566 = -4.6%)

1974 median income, women, all races, 2010 dollars: $12,290
2010 median income, women, all races, 2010 dollars: $20.831 (+8541 = +69%)

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/


Real (inflation-adjusted) US GDP increase, 1974 - 2008 = +337.8%

http://forecastchart.com/chart-gdp-inflation.html

[NutmegYankee]

80. +1 nt

[valerief]

18. It must be ETERNAL WAR that's doing it. nt

[Odin2005]

22. Jeez, you really brought out the doom-and-gloom people.

People, People, 2 steps forward and one step back. Then 2 more steps forward.

WTF happened to the belief in progress?

[TheWraith]

32. I know. I feel like I'm about to watch people form a suicide pact.

I never thought hope was so controversial and worthy of scorn. :P

[Fumesucker]

53. The 1% stole it..

:shrug:

[PSPS]

23. Are you high?

1. The "National average wage indexing series" is used to compute benefits based on one's "average" wage inflation over their contributing working years. It certainly isn't a chart of the median wage or average income of the population. The fact is that wages have been flat or declining for a long time:



As someone else already pointed out, a single wage earner used to be able to support a family with stay-at-home mom, take a vacation, buy the occasional new car, send the kids to school, often buy a house. It usually takes two full-time workers to support a household these days.

2. Society is more enlightened and tolerant than at any previous point in history? Not in the US. Explain how 50% of the US population routinely votes against their best interest. Explain why half the people think Saddam attacked the WTC.

3. More people in more places are freer than ever before, ranging from places like Egypt and Libya. Maybe, but in the US, you have the federal government conspiring with local police to suppress the people's right to freely assemble and speak. Our political system is hopelessly corrupt. Our media is either infotainment or all propaganda all the time. Our police departments are fully militarized. Our emails and phones are assumed to be monitored. Been to an airport lately? Your choice is the cancer machine or getting sexually molested.

I could go on, but you get the point. I'm not trying to be hard on you. Hey! I can certainly understand the value of being a "glass is half full" kind of guy. It's good to try to be optimistic. But there is a difference between optimism and delusion.

[TheWraith]

26. No, but thanks for responding with insults.

"As someone else already pointed out, a single wage earner used to be able to support a family with stay-at-home mom, take a vacation, buy the occasional new car, send the kids to school, often buy a house."

Again, you've bought into a glorified, rose-colored view of that period of history. That was NOT something that the average person could do--that was something the average upper middle class or upper class wage-earner could do, while most Americans lived in modest homes which would be considered extremely low end today, did not have a car, certainly didn't have two cars, and in general practiced a standard of living that today we would consider poverty level.

"more enlightened and tolerant than at any previous point in history? Not in the US."

Try going back even 30 years and being openly gay.

"in the US, you have the federal government conspiring with local police to suppress the people's right to freely assemble and speak"

A false claim based on rumormongering.

"Been to an airport lately? Your choice is the cancer machine or getting sexually molested."

Actually, you get far more radiation on the plane ride itself than going through a scanner.

[sam11111]

24. wage of SINGLE job(not the recent 2 job family)lower than '72)..2Billion down into poverty-Globalism

Crime...2/3 rds
Of rapes(just one type of crime which I recall)...cops told not to file a report after victim complains, due to cop staff shortage due to tax cuts for the rich. So crime now IS higher just not reported.

Many other falsehoods in OP but I short on time.
Just dismiss that OP--all of its conclusions false and most "facts" are ones I can easily show to be false as well.

PS Economists call 50's "the Golden Age" for good scientific statistical reasons. '45 - '64 actually.

[TheWraith]

30. Your assertions do not change actual facts.

No, crime is not higher. There are problems with global poverty, but population growth has a lot to do with that. And I actually linked to some of my examples, which you cannot do since you aren't basing your statements on real facts.

[Odin2005]

39. violent crime rates have been dropping since 1994.

My source is The Better Angels of Our Natures, Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker.

[guitar man]

31. I guess it depends on who you are

Amd where you're standing. I've worked my ass into the ground and can't begin to approach the standard of living my dad with his 8th grade education was able to provide for us growing up. Had to throw health insurance overboard last year because I could no longer afford it. Hanging on to a job somehow and finally, finally got a 3% cost of living increase after 5 miserable years with no raise at all. Wife lost her job and can't find another one. And so on and so forth... :(

[TheWraith]

33. I feel for you there. As I mentioned, I'm long term unemployed.

Or at this point, underemployed, as I've been getting a little bit of income but nothing close to a real living.

Still, one of the things that keeps me going is the knowledge that everything does gradually continue to get better.

[guitar man]

40. Gawd I hope it gets better

I graduated high school in '82 and I feel like I've been kicked like a dog for the last 3 decades. :(

[emilyg]

34. +1

[wickerwoman]

41. +1

I'm in my mid-30s and better educated than parents and no matter how hard I work, I will never have what they have (two cars, their own house, real health insurance, retirement in late 50s, spending money to travel). And they made below average salaries for their time.

You'd have to be deliberatly obtuse not to see that people in their 20s and 30s now will have a lower standard of living than their parents. Climate change impacts, peak oil, paying off student loans, job insecurity, crappy health care... all of these things will take their toll.

[Romulox]

38. Tell us the part about how all poor people today are fat, too, and have cable tv.

Best of all possible worlds, this! :silly:

[TheWraith]

43. I'm sorry, you're right, we should all be slitting our wrists because the world sucks.

Any acknowledgement of the improvements that have been brought about, or about how Americans are better off today thanks to progress than they were in the right-wing's fantasy 1950s Leave It To Beaver world, is somehow betraying the cause of liberalism. :eyes:

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheWraith]

46. I made my case based on actual facts. You resorted to insults and insinuations.

Your only evidence is to imply that anyone who thinks modern life is less than a living hell, or that life is better today than before 90% of the programs an infrastructure you take for granted, is somehow a right-wing shill.

[Name removed]

52. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Romulox]

64. To be clear, I didn't say anything like what you are claiming I did in the posts that were deleted.

[sabrina 1]

71. It's not a living hell for you, we got that.

But you won't mind if the rest of us try to help the huge number of Americans for whom it IS a living hell? You don't have to join in that effort, but to deny that there are not millions of Americans, veterans, single mothers, children, one in six of whom are going to bed hungry each night in this great nation, is simply to be in a huge state of denial. Why you want to deny these facts, I can't imagine, but they are facts.

Fortunately there are great progressives, these efforts to improve the lives of others, always seems to fall on progressives for some reason, who will continue to fight to make life better for all Americans.

Why are you so negative? Why so angry at those who are addressing the huge problems that exist in our society? THEY are not complaining, they are too busy doing.

So why this negative thread attacking those who apparently see what you do not? No one is asking you to do anything about these problems, that is your choice. But to be angry at those who are willing and able to help those less fortunate, that makes no sense at all.

[WildNovember]

44. The median wage and the average wage are two different things. The social security series is based

on average wage, not median wage. The "average" wage is skewed to the right (because of growth in higher incomes).


MALE MEDIAN WAGE: FLAT or DOWN SINCE THE 70S. FEMALE MEDIAN WAGE: TRACKING GDP GROWTH MORE OR LESS BUT STILL LESS THAN MALE MEDIA WAGE.





Here’s Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. economist and the director of the Hamilton Project, explaining:

The red line is the usual picture of median earnings for full-time men. The problem with this line is that the percentage of men working over time has been declining over time. This attrition or dropping out of the labor force is not random, though, as the decline in full-time work it is disproportionately concentrated among low-skill men. This means that the red line is being propped up by the fact that it is increasingly comprised of higher skilled men.

One sensible correction for this is to calculate the median wage for all men (not just the full-time workers). This is the blue line in the below graph.

Why is this important? The full-time sample (red line) suggests that median wages have been stagnant since 1969.

The Hamilton Project said the blue line or full sample of men (which accounts for reduced labor force participation) suggested that median wages had declined by 28 percent, or almost $13,000 (in constant dollars).

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/the-struggles-of-men/

THE ONLY REASON MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD & FAMILY INCOME IS (MARGINALLY) HIGHER THAN IN THE 70S IS THE INCREASED PERCENT OF WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE.

[TheWraith]

47. The SocSec Admin's averages are weighted to avoid being skewed by high wages.

And Paul Krugman agrees with me.

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ratrace.html

[Romulox]

51. Paul Krugman was a "third way" neo-liberal in his past life. You are likely quoting from before his

"liberal awakening". :hi:

[TheWraith]

56. So now Paul Krugman is insufficiently liberal? Oy.

You need to learn to accept the fact that acknowledging the reality that people on average are better off today is not some kind of right wing trap. Particularly when that fact speaks to the SUCCESS of Democratic policies. The insistence that we were all doing better in the 1950s, with no Medicare, Medicaid, few labor protections, SCHIP, civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, or gay rights, THAT is the right-wing viewpoint.

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

59. Deleted message

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[WildNovember]

74. The average is not the median, & the "weighting" is not transparent.

I'll take the actual data, thanks.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/

And it shows that men at the median today make less in real dollars than in 1973, and that the only reason households have kept up is because of the increase in working women -- who still earn less than men at the median.

Women working (or both men & women working) has some benefits, but also has a big downside on families and communities. Which is not figured into those calculations about how absolutely WONDROUS our lives are compared with the past.

Additionally, black men are not substantially better off than they were in 1974, despite all the hype about what a horrible racially unequal place the US was in 1973 v. today.

Black men at the median make about $1000 dollars in real terms than they did in 1973. And both they & white & black women at the median STILL make less, in real terms, than what white men at the median did in 1973.

The people who have done better are the top 10%, which now includes some minority faces. But their ever-increasing share of the income pie has driven up the cost of living for everyone else, as have their stupid financial games and their cutthroat philosophy.

And communities where men can't support families become ghettoized. THAT'S what's happening to families at the median.

[WildNovember]

78. Besides which, Krugman doesn't exactly "agree' with you.

But admitting that people's happiness depends on their relative economic level as well as their absolute economic resources has some subversive implications.

For example: Many conservatives have seized on the Boskin report as a club with which to beat all those liberals who have been whining about declining incomes and increasing poverty in America. It was all, they insist, a statistical hoax.

But you could very well make the opposite argument. America in the 1950s was a middle-class society in a way that America in the 1990s is not. That is, it had a much flatter income distribution, so that people had much more sense of sharing a common national lifestyle. And people in that relatively equal America felt good about their lives, even though by modern standards, they were poor--poorer, if Boskin is correct, than we previously thought.


*******

But you are conflating the average with the median. In terms of income alone, the median family or household is NOT better off, as it now takes two workers to provide the income that ONE could in 1973.

Men's income is lower; women's is higher, but is still about $10K lower than what men's was in 1973 -- in real terms.

[Safetykitten]

50. What an amazing pile of horse shit.

[Zorra]

54. Lol! Steamin'. +1

[TheWraith]

57. I notice that you can't actually refute my facts. nt

[Name removed]

61. Deleted message

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[TheWraith]

63. It's funny how some people like to insist I'm completely wrong, but can't offer any facts.

It's just a faith-based certainty in my wrongness, while I sit here with my statistics, agreeing with Paul Krugman. :)

[Safetykitten]

69. Beaver Cleaver gets a cable bill.

I really don't know where to start on this Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm meets Mr. Rodgers but I will try. Most of what you point out are not facts, but opinion, easily put forth by you as a kneejerk reaction to reality around you. Maybe you have a comfortable life, we will never know, and have a good job that has benefits. Having these items these days is quite a feat, and we are happy you are happy, and would not like to take that away from you, or maybe would tell you to lay off the sauce before posting.

Your big premise, if I have this correctly is that people are longing for the past that they percieved as easier, and things are much better in our bright shiny new world. Well, I can agree with you that looking to the past is tiresome, but standing in the tunnel of a dystopian future and waving for us to join you on tracks to wave happily it's approach is something the more sane would not rather do.

In our age now, it is the the policy of our government,(Wall Street) to make life as basically a marginally exceptable experience while culling the maximum amount of money. The things of the past, either free, low cost, or provided by the government as it's function in a good society has been turned over to business. Your happy-happy-joy-joy future is a society of a permanent underclass of the nickeled and dimed for everything that is needed to function.

The fact that you cannot see this, disturbing as it is, and as in front of your face as it is, makes the people that live the day to day barely making it life wonder if maybe it would be a good thing to let it all collapse. Instead of the gaping axe wound of an economy we have demanding billions with no end in sight, maybe it would of been a good thing to level the playing field and let the place go to shit so to speak, as they would be spared moronic and vulgar displays of posts like yours.

We have a very clear fork in the road up ahead. The OWS people have opened one path, the current Democratic leadership is frantically waving to follow the other. One shows the hideousness of what our country has become, a pay to live experience, constantly in a billing cycle that never ends. The other, a wonderfull life, full of hidden lies and if you are lucky, money.

[OnyxCollie]

75. I don't know who you're talking to.

But if he gives you a quote from "Russ Feingold," don't believe it.

[woo me with science]

84. Smart collie.

Let us not forget...

:rofl: :thumbsup:

[WildNovember]

76. Great post.

[woo me with science]

86. Fantastic post

and description of where we are now.

[bhikkhu]

62. You are right, but most people haven't experience very far back

and it takes some mental skills and application to understand what life was before modern times.

Of course there are problems, and many of the things we enjoy now may in the long have been better not done at all, but basically life is easy. Not for everyone, but for the great majority. As I tell my kids, we live in one of the richest countries on earth, in the richest era of human history ever.

Nothing is perfect, and most people are really only happy when they have some work to sets themselves against, which some individuals will only undertake as an "unhappy" thing...which is to say the human mind is a conundrum frustrating simple explanations. We should be happier, but that doesn't work well for most.

[slipslidingaway]

65. Average weeks unemployed, highest since 1948 ...

last chart at link.

http://contraryinvestor.com/2011archives/mosept11.htm


"...The average standard of living is higher than ever before, with even the working poor being assured of things like full plumbing..."


Reminds me of this Colbert report

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/393168/july-26-2011/-poor--in-america

""Poor" in America

A Heritage Foundation report proves that as long as "poor" Americans have refrigerators and the strength to brush flies off their eyeballs, they're not really poor..."

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

67. You make some good points

I was born in 1949 and I know from direct observation that many people are better off today, especially racial minorities, women in the workplace, gays, the disabled, etc. But there were aspects of life after WWII that were better then. Just because some of us are nostalgic about those times doesn't mean we want the bad aspects of life back then to return. We want what was good. I'm talking about the ability of one man to work a factory job, raise a large family, buy a house, buy a car, take vacations and have the time to take vacations, send all his kids to college, give them healthcare, and afford a secure retirement. My father did it and so did many others. That America is gone for most of us. Noted economist Richard Wolff in his book Capitalism Hits The Fan provides a detailed explanation of how America has gotten worse, especially since Reagan. He explains it far better than I can. I do applaud your positive attitude, however. Defeatism will get us nowhere.

[WildNovember]

73. But REALISM is important. And the fact is that working men at the median made more in 1973

than they do today.  That's aggregate data for all races.

Racially, it breaks out like this (1973 numbers are in
inflation-adjusted, 2010 dollars):


        Men (white/black)         Women  (white/black)

1973    $37,077/$22,427            $12,383/$11,176

                  

2010    $34,047/$23,203            $20,947/$19,700

          (-8%/+3%)                (+69%/+76%)




http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/



White men at the median have lost income; black men have
gained very minimally; white & black women have gained
substantially but still do not earn equivalent to men, &
families & communities have lost, in terms of the need for
two-earner families in order to JUST HOLD ON TO THE LIVING
STANDARD OF 1973.

[greyl]

77. lol. Some things are better, but you appear to be ignoring a multitude of worsening issues. nt

[pampango]

79. "We are in the midst of the fastest period of (global) poverty reduction the world has ever seen."

With Little Fanfare, Hundreds Of Millions Escaped Poverty

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/with-little-fanfare-hundreds-of-millions-escaped-poverty/451432

We are in the midst of the fastest period of poverty reduction the world has ever seen. The global poverty rate, which stood at 25 percent in 2005, is ticking downward at one to two percentage points per year, lifting around 70 million people — the population of Turkey or Thailand — out of destitution annually. Advances in human progress on such a scale are unprecedented, yet they remain almost universally unacknowledged.

Global poverty has come to be seen as a constant, with the poor cut off from the prosperity enjoyed elsewhere. In a new study of global poverty, we upend this narrative, finding that poverty reduction accelerated in the early 2000s at a rate that has been sustained throughout the decade, even during the dark recesses of the financial crisis.

This means that the prime target of the Millennium Development Goals — to halve the rate of global poverty by 2015 from its 1990 level — was probably achieved in 2008. Whereas it took 25 years to reduce poverty by half a billion people up to 2005, the same feat was likely achieved in the six years between then and now. Never before have so many people been lifted out of poverty over such a brief period of time.

This stunning progress is driven by rapid economic growth across the developing world. During the 1980s and 1990s, per capita growth in developing countries averaged just 1 to 2 percent a year, not nearly fast enough to make per serious dent in poverty levels. Since around 2003, however, growth in the developing world has taken off, averaging 5 percent per capita per year.

[WildNovember]

82. That's a bit different than what the UN says.

Least developed countries are achieving record rates of economic expansion, but growth is failing to trickle down into significantly improved well-being for the majority of their population. The Least Developed Countries Report 2008 argues that this results from the type of economic growth and development strategy that these countries are following. In order to decisively reduce material deprivation and embark on economic and social development, LDCs need to adopt new types of development strategies that are nationally formulated and owned. One of the elements of this change is to adopt management policies for the official development aid they receive.

Economic expansion in the LDCs since 2000 has been stronger than in the 1990s. In 2005 and 2006, there was a further growth acceleration and the LDCs together achieved the strongest growth performance for thirty years.

Rapid economic growth has been associated with a slow rate of poverty reduction and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The LDCs as a group are unlikely to reach the goal of reducing the incidence of poverty by half between 1990 and 2015. Most of these countries are also off track to achieve most of the other MDGs. There is no evidence of a significant change in trends in social development since 2000, after the adoption of the Millennium Declaration and more socially-oriented policy reforms.

http://www.unctad.org/Templates/WebFlyer.asp?intItemID=4547&lang=1

[pampango]

83. UNCTAD seems to exclude most of Asia from that analysis (perhaps because most of Asia

is no longer part of the Least Developed Countries - which is a good thing). Only 5 Asian countries are included among the LDS's - Bhutan, Nepal, Laos, Cambodia and Bangladesh. The big Asian countries - China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. are not considered LDS's anymore.

The article I posted refers to global poverty reduction since 1990. The UNCTAD study refers to problems with poverty reduction in the remaining LDC's. I think they can both be accurate.

[Downwinder]

81. Just for point of reference:

What was your location 60 years ago?

[SoCalDem]

88. Crime is lower because the largest group of males (demographically)

"aged out" of the 15-30 yr age group:)