
Median Male Worker Makes Less Now Than 43 Years Ago - japanesesandman
http://oddline.blogspot.com/2011/09/median-male-worker-makes-less-now-than.html
======
hugh3
The inflation rate has huge error bars, at least in terms of how official
inflation compares to "real" inflation. So comparing one "inflation adjusted"
number to another from 43 years ago and getting concerned over a difference of
a mere couple of hundred bucks (about three percent) is pretty meaningless.

The biggest flaw in the article seems to be the assumption that the inflation-
adjusted income of the median worker _should_ be increasing. Wages will
_basically_ track inflation, since the main thing we buy from one another is
each others' labour. Meanwhile land gets more expensive but technology gets
cheaper. It's pretty much a wash.

~~~
coenhyde
Real wages should have increased considering the huge increase in productivity
that has occurred.

~~~
cperciva
Why does one imply the other?

Productivity is measured in $GDP per man-hour, and is consequently skewed by
the effects of capital. Giving someone better tools increases his
productivity, but it doesn't mean that he's a better worker or deserves higher
wages; the person who deserves the increased income is the guy who provided
the tools.

~~~
VladRussian
as a result, if better tools don't require higher skills/education (and thus
don't naturally lead to higher wages), nobody wants to be the guy using the
tools. In this case it is necessary either to still increase the wages for
using the tools or outsource or bring cheap labor in.

------
william42
«While the fact that a record number of Americans are living in poverty should
not surprise anyone at this point,»

Record _number_ or record _percent_? It's an incredibly significant
distinction.

~~~
dalke
Total numbers. It's the highest rate in two decades. "The poverty rate in 2010
was the highest since 1993 but was 7.3 percentage points lower than the
poverty rate in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are
available. Since 2007, the poverty rate has increased by 2.6 percentage
points."

Source:
[http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_weal...](http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb11-157.html)

There's a graph showing both numbers at
[http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/13/7742437-pov...](http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/13/7742437-poverty-
rate-hits-18-year-high-as-median-income-falls?GT1=43001)

~~~
jerf
The problem is that the poverty line used by the census is basically
arbitrary:
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_0...](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00009902
----000-.html) , particularly the part about how at its discretion the
government may tweak with the line to produce the desired results w.r.t.
program eligibility. Since it is apparently the official cutoff for many
programs, many people are motivated to keep it moving up.

I don't have a particular objection to that line as used for government
program eligibility, but it's not valid to use it as an actual measure of
"poverty", whatever that may be. 2011 poverty and 1959 poverty in the US are
pretty much entirely incomparable no matter what definition you use.

~~~
lotharbot
> 2011 poverty and 1959 poverty in the US are pretty much entirely
> incomparable

I'm a particular fan of using census data to make this point. Consider the
"American Housing Survey":

<http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/nationaldata.html>

Americans below the poverty line in 2009 are more likely to have things like
complete kitchens, complete plumbing, automobiles, air conditioning, and
dishwashers than Americans _as a whole_ in 1970. Put another way, if we used
the living conditions of someone at the poverty line right now and used that
to define the poverty line in 1970, over half of the 1970 population would be
below the poverty line.

That's not to say all modern Americans are comfortable. There are still some
in true poverty. It's just not very many. (It turns out I've been "in poverty"
for most of my life; I just never noticed.)

~~~
dalke
Sure. And compared to 250 years ago even the poorest of the poor in the US is
a veritable king in material wealth. Who then could have green vegetables in
the middle of a snowy winter, yet now anyone can buy canned vegetables.

My point is that the things you talk about occur because it's _cheap_. Can you
find a house these days without complete plumbing? 15 years ago I helped a
friend buy a used car for $600, which he could afford on US $11,000 per year
as a graduate student.

Oddly enough, people _with_ money don't a dishwasher or complete kitchen,
because they can eat out. Money gives options.

In any case, you and the previous poster state that the definition of poverty
used in the census is variable. The aforelinked definition is one of two
definitions of poverty used by the US, specifically, this is the one used to
determine who can participate in assistance programs. You can see that it's
defined by the CPI, with no way to be flexible about it, unless a given State
wants to raise it by at most 25%.

This is because the US definition is, contrary to with you both say, an
absolute definition. Quoting from Wikipedia:

Since the 1960s, the United States Government has defined poverty in absolute
terms. When the Johnson administration declared "war on poverty" in 1964, it
chose an absolute measure. The "absolute poverty line" is the threshold below
which families or individuals are considered to be lacking the resources to
meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide
the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health.

This in turn is based on the CPI, and aside from a few minor changes "the U.S.
government's approach to measuring poverty has remained static for the past
forty years."

In other words, you and the previous poster are incorrect.

~~~
jerf
"The US government's approach to measuring poverty" is, well, just that. It is
not the one true objective definition of poverty. If you are going to accept
that as a definition of "poverty", it actually removes all incentives to
"fight" poverty, because it's impossible to move the needle. If you somehow
beat poverty back 5%, the government's going to move the line up to make up
for it. As a government measure, it's fine. As the One And True Philosophical
and Cultural Definition of Poverty, it's worthless, because the government
won't _let_ us "beat" poverty back to the point that it doesn't exist anymore.

Because if it would let us do that, we'd already have done it.

Your "absolute" terms are _still_ relative, because you can't get around the
fundamental and massive changes in technology in all forms across all of
society.

Government definitions are suitable for government work, no sarcasm or
reference to popular sayings intended. They are not suitable for philosophical
debating; all the fact that legal poverty going up really means in the end is
that we are in an economic downturn, not that anything (else!) fundamental has
changed at the societal level. This isn't a special "poverty" problem, it's
just another phrasing of the recession(/depression).

~~~
dalke
The reason for the US definition of poverty, founded as it is in the "War on
Poverty", is precisely because it is absolute. Quoting again from that
Wikipedia article: "Since [the Orshansky Poverty Thresholds] measure was
absolute (i.e., did not depend on other events), it made it possible to
objectively answer whether the U.S. government was "winning" this war."

Your argument about "one true objective definition of poverty" is pointless.
What you're arguing is that since we're materially better off than the Middle
Ages, no one is poor anymore. You want to throw the word "poor" out the
window, while I want to say that the word has real meaning, and that meaning
is "lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having
insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to
preserve health."

Your disdain for the government is clear, but without justification since
_any_ statement you make can be rejected with an equally disdainful comment on
its originator. Better would be to point out how most families of four, making
under $22,350 a year really have no problems meeting those basic needs. Books
like "Nickel And Dimed" suggest otherwise. I look forward to your large scale
research which clearly refutes such anecdotal evidence.

~~~
lotharbot
> _"What you're arguing is that since we're materially better off than the
> Middle Ages"_

No -- what he's arguing is that we're materially better off than _the periods
of time in which you and the article are trying to compare to_. It's dishonest
to make a comparison to some decades ago and then complain when others make
comparison to those same time periods.

The word "poor" does have real meaning -- but its meaning is _relative_. 1959
poor and 2009 poor are not the same thing. The measures used to define poverty
(and inflation) are not absolute, objective, or static, despite what wikipedia
claims.

~~~
dalke
No, I'm trying to argue that 1) the definition that the US uses was chosen
precisely because it isn't relative and can be used to judge of the "War on
Poverty" has been won, 2) that being better off materially is only one aspect
of being poor; shelter and health are two other factors, and 3) choosing a
purely material, absolute definition, doesn't make sense since if you go back
in time then everyone was poor. And I refuse to say that Louis XIV was poor
simply because he didn't have air conditioning.

While someone who has to decide between food and rent money, despite having a
plasma TV bought two years ago, before losing a job due to protracted illness,
is poor.

There's a simple resolution to this - what do you define as poor? How many
people in the US do you consider are poor? Are people now significantly less
poor than they were in 1970, and how do you measure that?

Since you don't like the baseline of Wikipedia, I point you to the US Census
Department at
[http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/publications/orshansky.ht...](http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/publications/orshansky.html#C2)
(next two paragraphs)

Orshansky accurately described her poverty thresholds as a "relatively
absolute" measure of poverty(60), inasmuch as they were developed from
calculations that made use of the consumption patterns (at a particular point
in time) of the U.S. population as a whole. (In the dichotomy between relative
and absolute definitions of poverty, one of the essential characteristics of a
purely "absolute" definition of poverty is that it is derived without any
reference to the consumption patterns or income levels of the population as a
whole.(61)) However, while Orshansky's poverty thresholds were not a purely
absolute measure, they were also quite clearly not a purely relative measure,
such as the 50-percent-of-median-income measure proposed by Britain's Peter
Townsend in 1962 and (in the United States) by Victor Fuchs in 1965.(62)

The relativity is that the definitions assume that 1/3rd of income goes to
food, which was the case in the 1950s. That is less now, while housing and
transportation/energy costs are higher.

So okay, yes, there's some relativity in the definition, but it isn't by far a
relative definition.

~~~
lotharbot
Since you want to introduce far-past figures into the mix, let me ask you
this: would it be valid to compare how many poor people there are today to how
many poor people there were 500 years ago? Would that comparison even make
sense? I contend that it would not -- not that modern people aren't "poor" or
that ancient people are all "poor", just that _you can't treat them as though
they're the same_. It doesn't make sense to try to count them and say "OMG the
number of poor went up" or "OMG the number of poor dropped" over time periods
of longer than a few years, because in terms of material goods, shelter,
health, nutrition, and all sorts of other factors, "poor" changes enough to
make the comparison invalid.

Likewise, it would be pointless to compare the percent of the US population
who are "poor" to the percent of the Sudanese population who are "poor"
because you're talking about such different characteristics.

I think the definition of "poor" you gave earlier is OK. It's just not an
absolute definition, and you need an absolute definition _if you want to
compare numbers over time_.

~~~
dalke
Poverty existed 500 years ago. The Romans had poverty
([http://books.google.com/books?id=Aw4cHjMbH94C&dq=Poverty...](http://books.google.com/books?id=Aw4cHjMbH94C&dq=Poverty%2BIn&ie=ISO-8859-1&source=gbs_gdata)
) . The Greeks had poverty ([http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Praise-Poverty-
Origins-Cynicism/...](http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Praise-Poverty-Origins-
Cynicism/dp/0268025827)) (that book talking about how the Cynics preferred
poverty).

Therefore yes, it's possible to make meaningful comparisons of the numbers of
people who are poor. It's possible to ask questions like: "Is poverty a
temporary condition, or a permanent characteristic of a subpopulation?", and
"Is it due to the inability of the culture to generate enough resources, or is
it due maldistribution of those resources?"

It's not easy. But your view seems to be that the definition changes so
quickly that a person in 1991 and the same person now can't judge if they were
poorer now or then. Factors like "income security, economic stability and the
predictability of one's continued means to meet basic needs all serve as
absolute indicators of poverty", yet you insist that because more people have
access to a full kitchen, running water, internet, penicillin, or whatever
then it's simply not possible to make valid comparisons.

While I disagree, and am dumbfounded that you don't recognize those non-
material, absolute factors as the essential characteristic of poverty.

~~~
lotharbot
Factors like income security, economic stability, and the predictability of
one's continued means to meet basic needs are essential to poverty. But if
what you mean by "basic needs" changes then your year-to-year comparison
quickly becomes _more noise than signal_. If "access to a full kitchen" was
not a basic need last year but it is this year, then some people will end up
on the other side of the line because _the line moved and they stayed still_.
That introduces noise; you can only detect signal that's bigger than your
noise (if you were living in a van down by the river in 1991, and own a nice 3
bedroom house now, that's a detectable signal.)

My contention is that, over the timescales we're talking about, the CPI (or
the definition of "basic needs") has shifted enough to invalidate the numbers-
to-numbers comparison.

You can still make valid observations and meaningful statements about, for
example, the persistence of poverty or distribution of resources over time.
There's enough signal to make those sorts of comments. I just don't see any
way to make meaningful statements about how poverty rose by 1.2% since 1959,
when I can point to several _substantial_ differences in conditions for those
in poverty between then and now that encompass far more than 1.2%.

~~~
dalke
My point is that "access to a full kitchen" is not part of the federal
government's definition of poverty, at least not the one regarding those who
are eligible for assistance.

Quite simply, it's not a basic need. Someone living in a studio apartment in
NYC with a kitchenette, making $80K a year and living there because it's got a
great location, is not poor. Someone who can afford to eat out for every meal,
and lives in a place with many food offerings, needs no kitchen.

To test your contention, is a family of four living in the US on less than
$23,000 per year - that being roughly the CPI-based poverty level using
methods relatively unchanged for 40 years - not a reasonable definition of
being poor in the US?

If not, what is a reasonable value, and do you have a way to determine that
value which is effective for more than a few years? (Since if not, it will be
highly subject to political pressure.)

~~~
lotharbot
> _"My point is that "access to a full kitchen" is not part of the federal
> government's definition of poverty"_

But it contributes directly to the definition, despite not explicitly being
named. Because the definition is tied to CPI, which is tied to housing costs,
which are more likely to include the cost of a full kitchen now than in the
past _especially_ for people near the bottom. I would argue that for someone
in that position, having a full kitchen is better than not. Yet the CPI-based
measure treats the _cost_ of having a full kitchen as a negative (inflation),
without treating the _benefit_ of the full kitchen as a positive!

You keep misrepresenting my position (and asking questions that depend on your
misrepresentation). I'm not saying that people now are not poor. I'm not
saying the CPI-adjusted threshold is "wrong" for defining who is poor. What
I'm saying is that people who are poor now and people who were poor in the
past are not directly, numbers-to-numbers comparable. It's meaningless to say
that 1.2% more people are poor now than then, because there are _meaningful,
relevant differences_ in conditions between now and then that account for far
more than a 1.2% difference. The noise washes out the signal.

------
Zimahl
To be completely honest, I've said for years that women are the single
greatest reason for unemployment. When 50 years ago the majority of workers
were male and then you almost double the work force, you can try to have
enough jobs but those jobs that men were doing exclusively back then are no
longer theirs.

Hell, I saw a stat somewhere that there are now more women in medical school
than men. That's insane considering that it was not just male dominated 50
years ago, it was considered just a male profession.

My intent is not to sound misogynistic here, just stating a fact. And when
those who talk about returning to 1950s values (ahem, some Republicans) think
of what that means.

~~~
mkr-hn
More women in the workforce->More women with more money->More women buying
stuff->Market grows to accommodate new demand

edit:
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+unemployment+rate+si...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+unemployment+rate+since+1950)

I'm trying to think up a way to link those spikes in unemployment to notable
events in the history of the women's rights movement, but it's not happening.

------
myth_drannon
the source : [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/median-male-worker-makes-
less-...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/median-male-worker-makes-less-
now-43-years-ago)

------
ivankirigin
What about the purchasing power of an hour at median wage? These things matter
when assessing progress

~~~
lcargill99
For some goods, it is much greater. For government, education, health care and
land rent ( may go to housing cost in expensive areas ) it is not. And
actually, _fixed_ baskets of health care, housing, etc ( based on applicable
standards at the time the older measurement was taken ) it hasn't changed as
much.

~~~
ivankirigin
How does that mesh with the increasing proportion of society that own their
homes? Or the increase in technology in health care? Or the increase in the
proportion of people going to college?

------
chc
This is such a useless factoid without any context, as is the tacked-on bit
about women's income. Does this hypothetical median male work as much? Does he
work at a cushier job today? Does he have as many financial responsibilities?
Has some unprofitable sector seen a disproportionate influx that would bias
our selection of median male? (Ditto for the median female compared to the
median male.)

It seems to me that salaries are simply less flat than they used to be.

------
cheez
The government depends too much on financial/technological hackery to prevent
people from revolting. It's going to backfire.

Modern government will be remembered as being completely oblivious of the
wealth of those they governed, ironically in their own name.

Or maybe we'll be remembered as the stupidest people who ever lived.

Either way, keep this off HN. I come here to get away from reddit.

------
Symmetry
I wonder how much the amount that is spent on the compensation of the median
employee has increased from 43 years ago? My understanding is that healthcare
rather than wages has been taking up an increasingly large proportion of that
figure with the US's exploding healthcare costs.

------
aklemm
"And there is your lesson in inflation 101 " What does this have to do with
inflation?

Also, that site looks suspiciously auto-generated; there is nothing to explain
who is behind it nor what its theme and purpose are.

------
mattmiller
This should be compared with median home price delta over the years and median
cost of food. I bet the median home price has gone up drastically making the
overall cost of living much higher now than then. Median cost of food and
other necessities have probably gone down but that savings is probably wiped
out by the home price.

People will talk about the benefit of technology (the flatscreen TV argument)
and how that builds quality of life but I think disposable income is the
biggest factor in high quality of life.

~~~
Symmetry
Actually no, I was just reading an article about this. The cost of healthcare
and education have increased drastically. The cost of housing and food and gas
have remained more or less the same, the cost of everything else has
decreased.

~~~
david927
Can you show the numbers because from what I've seen, housing has gone through
the roof?

~~~
Symmetry
[http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/09/13/317965/the-
evol...](http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/09/13/317965/the-evolution-of-
prices-since-the-
late-1970s/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29)

EDIT: Remember that the CPI tries to compare apples to apples, which means
N-square foot houses to ones of similar size. And IIRC the size of the average
American's house has at least doubled since then.

~~~
david927
So they pay twice as much but it's considered the same because they have
bigger houses now? But isn't that "bigger TV" syndrome? (TVs cost twice as
much, but hey, they're twice as big now.) I think that's trying to justify the
price increase more than truly analyze it.

------
brown
Globalization. The median "American" male worker makes less. What about
globally?

~~~
Symmetry
Globally, the median human being had a greater increase in income in the last
decade than in any other decade in human history.

------
david927
This is Robert Reich giving a great lecture at Google about this exact
subject:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIxXZa5Fwzc>

------
SlowOnTheUptake
I don't know which is more surprising: that they can calculate inflation since
1968 with such astonishing precision (median income was $32,844) or that
buying a car from a defunct automaker (Pontiac) is an act of patriotism.

