Data Points:
Federal Minimum Wage
1970 - $1.45
2023 - $7.25
Median Home Price (US)
1970 - $23k
2023 - $431k
In 1970, the down payment on a home (15% or $3,450) would take ~3,000 hours (after tax) or 1-1/2 years at FMW (40 hours a week).
In 2023, it would take ~10,790 FMW hours (after tax), or 5 years 3 months AND you'd never be able to afford the payments.
...
This is a good thing to remember when the older generations mock the younger for not building wealth as they did.
@PadreSJ in 2004 I made $7.50/hr
In 2021 I was told I would get $12.00/hr for the same position.
In 2007 as a PIC (hourly shift manager), IIRC I made $15.00/hr.
In 2022 as a PIC it was $16.00/hr, bumped up to $17.00/hr this year due to my experience a decade ago as a General Manager.
Nevermind rates from the 70s and before, wages haven’t kept up with inflation or CoL increases since 9-11.
@PadreSJ heck, missing a day of work to get my eye checked due to blood floating in it, and Thanksgiving being an unpaid holiday, means I don’t know how I’m paying December rent, aside from *once more* relying on the generosity of others, likely those who have helped me before and can ill-afford to do so again.
I’m so tired, Padre.
@mattblaze @PadreSJ maybe we can lay off the mockery for a bit?
Just a thought. A silly one, I know. But still.
@bodhipaksa Exactly.
The same economics that allowed them to buy a home and create wealth within it has priced out the younger generations from doing the same.
Why-in-the-name-of-all-that's-holy would older generations mock younger ones for not building wealth?
I am a member of one of those "older generations" and mockery is absolutely the farthest thing from my mind. I'm trying to sort out how we (as the older generations) can pool some resources and solve some of the bigger issues like medical and student debt without involving or relying on an increasingly non-functional gov't or other large institution/s.
As a member of one of the older generations, I'm with you. I actually think that MOST of us understand how hard the younger generations have it.
However, there are those in our country who make political & business careers out of convincing folk that Gen-Y/Z are "lazy".
@PadreSJ To me it's just incredible the amount of shit the rich can feed most of the public without triggering ten times as much crime, a violent uprising, and a complete economic collapse as everyone is forced to steal to survive.
We are starting to see a little of it, with Wal-Mart and other chain stores pulling out of "unprofitable" areas, and shelves left bare after being stripped of items that can be resold on the street.
What astounds me is that we don't get so much of this that no store will restock as the merchandise cannot be sold (only liberated), so orders stop and this ripples all the way back to the farms and sweatshops. They close, production plummets and as their workers are fired poverty accelerates in a rapid downward spiral.
Policing cannot stop this if enough people are forced to survive by crime, as cops quickly become outnumbered.
Only way out of this would be for people to raise their own crops and make their own tools, plus a general agreement not to plunder each other(only the remaining rich), and that could collapse if the agreements are only valid inside the communities in which they are made.
@PadreSJ
Actually the narrative goes further than that:
Ceo pay increase has been 1400 % since then and therefore now buying a house is only for CEOs.
Edit: source https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2021/
What this report finds: Corporate boards running America’s largest public firms are giving top executives outsize compensation packages that have grown much faster than the stock market and the pay of typical workers, college graduates, and even the top 0.1%. In 2021, we project that a CEO at one of the top 350 firms in the U.S. was paid $27.8 million on average (using a “realized” measure of CEO pay that counts stock awards when vested and stock options when cashed in). This 11.1% increase from 2020 occurred because of rapid growth in vested stock awards. Using a different “granted” measure of CEO pay (which counts the value of stock awards and options when granted rather than realized), average top CEO compensation was $15.6 million in 2021, up 9.4% since 2020. In 2021, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 399-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 366-to-1 in 2020 and a big increase from 20-to-1 in 1965 and 59-to-1 in 1989. CEOs are even making a lot more than other very high earners (wage earners in the top 0.1%)—almost seven times as much. From 1978 to 2021, CEO pay based on realized compensation grew by 1,460%, far outstripping S&P stock market growth (1,063%) and top 0.1% earnings growth (which was 85% between 1978 and 2021, according to the latest data available). In contrast, compensation of the typical worker grew by just 18.1% from 1978 to 2021. Why it matters: Exorbitant CEO pay is a major contributor to rising inequality that we could restrain without doing any damage to the wider economy. CEOs are getting ever-higher pay over time because of their power to set pay and because so much of their pay (more than 80%) is stock-related. They are not getting higher pay because they are becoming more productive or are more skilled than other workers. This escalation of CEO compensation and of executive compensation more generally has fueled the growth of top 1% and top 0.1% incomes, leaving fewer of the gains of economic growth for ordinary workers and widening the gap between very high earners and the bottom 90%. The economy would suffer no harm if CEOs were paid less (or were taxed more). How we can solve the problem: We need to enact policy solutions that would both reduce incentives for CEOs to extract economic concessions and limit their ability to do so. Such policies could include reinstating higher marginal income tax rates at the very top; setting corporate tax rates higher for firms that have higher ratios of CEO-to-worker compensation; using antitrust enforcement and regulation to restrain the excessive market power of firms—and by extension of CEOs; and allowing greater use of “say on pay,” which allows a firm’s shareholders to vote on top executives’ compensation.
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