this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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Well yeah. Who gives a fuck about a 2% increase in the GDP? Prices are high and wages are low.
Housing (homes and apartments) is either in yet another bubble, or I guess just going to permanently remain absurdly high, slowly filtering more and more people into homelessness and death.
EDIT: (derp i fucked it up, EDIT 2)
Average rent vs median wage, cpi adjusted, and indexed to 1982 = 100.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1raP7
(Basic take away: the average real rent is about 4.2x or 420% what it was in 1982 whereas the median real wage has only risen by about 1.2x or 20%)
Edit 3: I would do median rent vs median wage, but FRED does not appear to track median rent.
Personal debt levels are astoundingly bad EDIT: If you do not own a house. The average US renter credit score is 638, and most places won't even consider you if it is below 620.
https://www.investopedia.com/do-you-need-credit-to-rent-apartment-8600564
The medical system remains ruinously expensive and corrupt.
The proportion of those who are not counted as unemployed, but who are not working, ~~climbs higher and higher.~~ is lowering, but still has not recovered to Pre-Covid levels, much less abated its general downward trend since the 90s.
(Labor Force Participation Rate).
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1raRG
College costs climb further and further, offering less and less likelihood of an actual decent paying job.
Wealth inequality is the worst in the known economic history of the world.
In 2/3 of the US states it's still legal to pay someone $7 an hour.
5.1% of $7 an hour is 35 cents.
Don't spend it all in one place, I guess.
Easy? Probably not enough! So many people have 2nd jobs just to make ends meet!
FTFY
I did too... almost 20 years ago with multiple roommates. My friend is making $12 and he had to move back in with his parents. This is in a very low cost of living state.
Less than 2% of the population is making minimum wage. Median income is more than double minimum wage. Even in rural areas
I agree it's not enough, should be raised and all that, but it's not the reality (because that number is so ridiculous)
shrugs
5.1% of $14 is 70 cents an hour. $28 bucks a week.
Don't spend it all in one place.
This economy is objectively atrocious for working people. I'm glad we can connect on the fact that it is most definitely not enough.
This seems like an unnecessary debate, because it's the wrong metric for "fair" pay.
I think the better metric is something like average employee pay ratio to C-suite pay, or something calculated compared to the stock market value, like market capitalization.
Because the biggest problem is that absolute and year-to-year value created by increased productivity is going to the bosses and owners at an unfairly disproportionate rate.
Agreed.
The only upside in this economy is that it's so bad, and there's so little leadership for workers at the federal level, that it's forced unions to become stronger by necessity.
Shrugs? Well fuck data I guess
On wages, exactly.
A small percent of a poverty wage is objectively worth criticism, if we're putting it nicely. If we want to talk in percentages, you'd need a 400% increase on the minimum wage in Mississippi to get to a living wage.
That's why I'm criticizing this reply.
Sorry but I'm criticizing your initial reply to the fact that wage increases are statistically high. Yes, 70 cents raise is a lot for a grocery worker. And it's especially important, as OP said, when compared to the rest of the world US is rising faster.
The "2/3 of states" reply, while factual, was misleading as well as tangential to the original point you were replying to.
Idealism has an important place, but not when it results in pure cynicism
It's only a lot for a grocery worker if cost-of-living is similarly low. It is not.
That wasn't my opinion. It's statistically a higher percent raise than average.
You get that a lot on Lemmy in regards to these topics.
They really don’t like it when you compare them to conservatives denying covid.
Anecdotal evidence is trash except when it’s their anecdotes. Then it’s second to none.
And you will keep being a pedant about it and just ignore that those extra pennies, just like the 5.1% referenced earlier in the thread, don't add up to anything when you're not being paid a living wage to begin with.
What I don't understand is why you're angrier with me than you are at Democrats and Republicans.
More than double is still woefully inadequate. A study from over a decade ago showed that people need to make an average of $75,000 a year to get by in America, it's more now.