It’s possible Hoppe was just plain wrong. Many people fall into the trap of saying “oh, well in the good ole days…” when the “good ole days” really were everyone worked at relatively low-paid and labor-intensive manufacturing jobs the way many people in the third world work today.
Food and clothing has gotten cheaper in real dollars, but the cost of education, health care and housing have all increased faster than compensation increases.
Plus, what does “wages and benefits” even mean? If I’m forced to pay a part of my paycheck to get a Cadillac health care plan I don’t want and never use, does that mean my compensation has gone up? It would seem to me that it’s gone down… A lot of “compensation increases” seem to me to be corrupt back-scratching between the dictatorial managements of privately owned corporate entities.
Funny how “education”, “health care”, and “housing” are all things that the government is extensively involved in, no?
“Funny how “education”, “health care”, and “housing” are all things that the government is extensively involved in, no?”
Well, government has to keep the health care and education industries happy. More than anything else they have to keep the housing industry happy, because the housing sector dominates the asset side of the balance sheets of the banking industry. And the banking industry in turn controls the Federal Reserve, which in turn controls the U.S. economy.
Actually, Benjamin, if you actually look at the graphs I posted (in other words, if you don’t just spout out your left-wing talking points and actually look at the facts), then you’ll discover that housing and food costs have fallen. In contrast, medical care and education are heavily regulated and subsidized by government. The result is low supply and high demand. Such amazing interventionist failures should not be surprising.
That said, I agree that it totally sucks that sometimes you don’t want health insurance or pensions or other benefits but get them anyway. For that, you can thank unions and government for structuring tax incentives and labor regulations in such a way that it becomes more profitable for businesses to provide you with health insurance or pensions instead of just giving you the money via higher wages.
is an older and more injury -sickness prone population growing faster then medical technology that can reduce health care costs?
well…there is the usda, and lables on textiles, consumer product safty commission, etc. i dont know the effects of those bureaus though.
How do they come up with falling wages?
do they mean by falling real wages , wages that are decreasing realative to some purchasing index??
where some basket of goods is creeping higher than wage increases???
thats what i took it as.
“Commies and other wacko leftists often like to claim that real wages are falling in the United States,…”
whether the poster is being genuine is his statement that pinkos are claiming this i dont know…what numbers or data the pinkos are using , iow.
A very encouraging post, my only question is exactly how are real wages calculated and is that figure 100% accurate?
My mistake, I wrote wages but I mean prices in general, as in how can you exactly compare the price of 1905 apples with 1990 apples. Can we be certain that this measurement is accurate?
Simply not accurate:
Percentage Change in Real Median Household Income, by Decade
Incomes are adjusted for household size and then scaled to reflect a three-person household
http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/?chartid=533
Further averages don’t tell the story when the income distribution changes. Those in the top most income groups saw rapid growth in real income. Those in lower income groups saw losses in real income. Yes, not everyone understands economics. Including many of the self congratulatory people posting on this thread.
Does “income” include benefits in the study you posted?
Not bad charts at all. But I have a source that contradicts our rising standards of living:
Yeah, because only an Economics Illiterate would fail to include the average number of wage earners and average household size in a chart illustrating median income per house hold member. Because it’s not like having the number of wager earners going up steadily over the time period covered in the chart would skew that data. Oh, wait, of course the median income per household member would go up steadily during a time period where the median household goes from being a one income family to being a two income family. Add to that the decreasing size of the average family (lowering the number of household member to divide that income by) and of course the chart will appear to show a steady increase, in spite of stagnate or slowly declining real wage.
There is a similar problem with the wages+compensation charts, failing to include what percentage of that “compensation” is actually going to things like health insurance paints a misleading picture. According to the “compensation” model I have received over $100,000 in healthcare coverage in the last decade, Wow, so my two physicals have cost over $50,000 each. I’d rather have the cash, because “compensation” doesn’t let me afford a home in decent school district.
Add to that the decreasing size of the average family (lowering the number of household member to divide that income by) and of course the chart will appear to show a steady increase, in spite of stagnate or slowly declining real wage.
The chart above shows median appliance ownership, not real wages. What it shows is that the purchasing power of people’s wages have actually increased for those products that are not heavily regulated by the State.
According to the "compensation" model I have received over $100,000 in healthcare coverage in the last decade, Wow, so my two physicals have cost over $50,000 each. I'd rather have the cash, because "compensation" doesn't let me afford a home in decent school district.
It means you did not have to spend that money yourself, that’s all. If you prefer the cash, change the way you work - become a contractor. Well, except that now everybody will be made at bayonet point to buy health care insurance but that’s what happens when one loves the State more than oneself.
To add on to what Old Mexican said, if you have a problem with non-monetary compensation, take it up with the government and unions which subsidize and mandate such non-monetary compensation like health insurance.
"for more than 20 years the living standards of middle class americans have steadily declined, incomes have remained flat or fallen and the opportunities and security we once took for granted have began to fade. for most families on income no longer pays the bills, it requires two or more incomes to afford a home, pay medical and child expenses, and put children through school. unless present trends change young workers are unlikely to live as well as their parents. good jobs with a future are harder and harder to come by, education doesnt count for what it once did, taxes continue to rise while social security is going bankrupt, private pensions are NO LONGER relaible, economic volatility and uncertainty are on teh rise,
politicians espouse nyumerous theories about teh cause the cause of these economic woes, seldom however do these officlas look below the surface, the roots of our economic ill can be traced t ocentral banking and our present monetary system"
is this message drastically differnt than teh alleged pinkos and mysterious real wage declines??? does teh above message use govt data different than the pinkos???
Don’t quote me on this, but on LRC I think either Peter Schiff or Gary North had written an article outlining how the standard of living had increased in spite of further government regulation. Basically, a free market is hard to put down all at once and while some parts of it still thrive then the standard of living could still increase, just not to quite the same degree it would in a complete free market system.