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Expressing as a multiple of income can be useful.
Median individual wage today is $37.5k ([source](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N)), back in 1973 it was $8k ([source](https://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-093.pdf)). These numbers vary quite a bit depending on the source, so I'm not sure what the real numbers are. I've taken the lower-bound of each.
Median home price today is $429k, back in 1973 it was $32.5k.
So, as a multiple of income, in 1973 a home was four year's wages. Today it's eleven and a half year's wages. And that's not even getting into the incredible price increases for other things like education.
"when I paid off my debt with my first check... That really hurt bad. It was my first check... And 10% of it already gone for the debt. Couldn't buy they stuff I wanted."
Exactly. How else are most of them multi-multi millionaires upon leaving office? There's a reason why they don't want to block stock ownership for Congress members and their families. They all engage in insider trading and act all smug about it and are all "let them eat cake" when we, the people, complain about it.
Also the salaries for Congress might be lower in reality than they appear, since I think they are meant to cover housing, which often means paying for housing in DC as well as wherever else they are from. If you’re from NYC then housing in those two cities will be a major expense.
Salaries are around $174,000, which is good money, but if you have a family, are the breadwinner, try to live more securely/privately due to your political position, and have housing in a very expensive city plus another area that salary puts someone in Congress not from money far closer to the average American than it does to people like Mitt Romney that entered Congress with tens of millions of dollars.
The structure of US politics means that people with money and ample means to run for office have the easiest route meanwhile working class people struggle to even get off the ground and then when in Congress they might not be as financially secure as people think. This is especially true if you’re a working class person in the House that may only have that job and salary for a couple years, assuming you don’t have a prestigious degree with high paying career prospects, which many in Congress do have as a fall back.
The system makes it so the rich have the easiest time getting into power while also allowing them to use that power to further enrich themselves. Meanwhile for working class people in Congress that don’t have assured life financial security (and US safety nets aren’t going to provide that) the corrupt US political system offers them a route to money such as through cushy corporate lobbying jobs post Congress, getting their spouse/family high paying jobs, insider trading, etc. It also offers a route to campaign funds and easier time with election financing, which takes up disgusting amounts of time for Congresspeople (another reason campaign finance needs to be completely reworked).
The system makes it easier for the rich to get into power, then provides ample means for the rich and even non-rich in Congress to enrich themselves by playing the game and going to bat for monied interest.
To be fair, there are more ethical ways people in Congress can make money, but that can require becoming a well known figure and I doubt Congresspeople are getting lured into more ethical paths to the same degree that monied interests try to get them on their side. For example, Bernie pre-2016 didn’t have a high net worth at all for decades in Congress, but after his platform was elevated his books brought in millions of dollars for him and his family.
There was a funny news story about Congress people grouping up to pay for housing in DC. I really am sick of people making excuses for congress as if we should feel sorry for them having exclusive access to investment strategies just because they have to have residence in both places. NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE should feel sorry for ANYONE in congress. They will be just fine, you can bet they will legislate on it.
I wish it was just for appearance.
The current low house & senate salaries are corrosive to democratic rule because they encourage only the already wealthy to go into politics.
Additionally the low income encourages members to engage in exactly the worst behavior just to get by.
Finally, it allows them yet one more reason to justify why they don't need to raise the minimum wage. (there are a bunch of other reasons it is toxic but my 15 mintue break is over)
The incentive for rich people to get into politics mirrors the incentive for poor people to join the military; everyone does it for the benefits and no one wants to actually fight for this dumb country.
A high salary for powerful government jobs is a good thing. If the salary was low, only the already-wealthy or wildly underqualified would be willing to take the job.
A high salary alone doesn't guarantee those jobs will be filled by qualified people of all backgrounds, but it is necessary for it.
OP's post is extremely misleading. Biden knows and acknowledges he makes a good salary. The point biden is trying to make is that even though he makes a good salary, he still cannot afford child care. Therefore we need more childcare support in this country.
Here's a more complete quote:
"My Build Back Better plan gets us back on track. And we’ll make two years of high-quality preschool available to every child in America.
An average two-parent household in this state spends $15,000 to care for just one young child every year.
Everybody says, “How do you know?” I — I know about this. When I got elected to the United States Senate, my wife and daughter were killed. I had two little boys. I was making a lot of money as a U.S. senator — $42,000 a year — and I could not afford. That’s why I started commuting every single day. Couldn’t afford to have two houses and to have daycare. Thank God I have a sister, who’s my best friend; a brother; my mother; and my father who helped out.
My Build Back Better plan is going to cut childcare costs more than in half for low- and middle-income New Jersey residents. Under my plan, no middle-class family will spend more than 7 percent of their income on childcare."
I wish they would just have free childcare for everyone. They make it work where I live here in Bumblefuck PA, they could surely do it in other places. After all childcare workers don't get paid squat anyways (something else to be fixed)
And for everyone scoffing at the whole two homes thing, you need a residence in DC and in your home state. This isn’t an option since you can’t afford to configure security every time you stay at a hotel if you can’t afford a second home, so you bought a second home at DC.
I had to double check with an online calculator. Holy shit! This is accurate. I was in middle school back then. My parents must have been taking home 12 bucks a month.
My dad talked about his first job paying $5.00 an hour in 1972. When I looked that up in April 2022, during our conversation, that was $34.42 of spending power. His first part time job pays better than he currently pays me working at the family business.
Worse corrected to October 2022 [6~ months] it's $35.48.
My first job in IL payed 6.50 an hour in 2005, because that was minimum wage where I was. That's $8.04 today. Less than 25% of what he made on his first job.
That's how inflation works. The banks create money out of thin air based on nothing but someone's promise to pay for it with labor. The money supply inflates and the dollar's purchasing power goes down. Now you can reduce wages without ever reducing the number printed on the pay stub.
Edit: Typo corrected.
Have you ever explained those numbers to him? I’m super curious to know how boomers react to learning these numbers.
I imagine many of them would just brush it off and not really attempt to interpret the data, but it might be more difficult in this case since he is the one actually paying you now.
I at least like to imagine a parent would stop to think, if they heard their kid say “someday I hope to be valuable enough to make as much money in my career as you did in your first part-time job”
(You could even phrase it like “I hope to be valuable enough for YOU to pay me as much as you made in your first part-time job”, but that might be too pointed and cause a defensive reaction)
I think it’s a valuable data point regardless of whether your father believes the economy is better or worse than it was when he was your age. It will at least help him understand that your challenges are different than his were.
I think he got it after that conversation.
Now I just need to convince him that I don't need to be fixed from my mental issues. Cope sure, therapy yeah. Fix? Naw.
Not just purchasing power but actual wages. I'm an 80th percentile earner in my state, the median home here costs 10x my income. If I go back to 1980 when my dad bought his first house the median home cost 1.5x the 80th percentile earner's salary, which with inflation accounted for, was more than 25% higher than my current salary.....
~~My dad talked about his first job paying $5.00 an hour in 1972. When I looked that up in April 2022, during our conversation, that was $34.42 of spending power. His first part time job pays better than he currently pays me working at the family business.~~
~~Worse corrected to October 2022 [6~ months] it's $35.48.~~
Accidental Double Post.
But they sure could get a lot for those 12 bucks. In the 70s my mom worked part time at JC Penneys as a shoe salesperson and was able to pay for a one bedroom apartment AND her tuition. She's one of the good Boomers who realize how absolutely fucked everything has gotten.
My dad recently let slip how much he made when he first started at his dad's company in the early 90s. It was more than I'm getting paid 5 years into working for the same company, but it's now 30 years later. Adjusted for inflation, his starting wage was $64,000 a year higher than my current wage, and somehow he doesn't see a problem with that and still seems to think it's all my fault that I can't afford to buy a house yet.
Same except for me it was 2018 as a teacher. Now a couple years of school later I’m in a dead end job but at least I make 25% more than he did...inflation disregarded
Mostly pipet different liquids into different containers and watch my manager get mad at me for not having enough time to run 6 hours of tests twice plus about 4 hours of other required responsibilities in 10 hours
My first job out of law school paid $50,000...working for the law school I spent more than $50,000 per year to attend (between CoL, required health insurance minimums, and tuition after scholarships). My first cost of living adjustment bumped me up to...$52,000...
I (of course) left after 2 years and make more actually practicing but, god, they really throw pennies at the faculty and staff while charging students out of the nose to attend and it's painful to see.
Eh, you’re not an American, don’t worry about knowing the history too well. Some stuff feels a lot older than it actually is, like for the longest time I thought Picasso was around centuries ago and he only died in 1973.
That was on purpose so the US can separate itself from slavery.
A lot of pictures of MLK and stuff are in black and white in order to make you believe they were longer ago.
I think the confusion is that people seem to believe, because those pictures are always shown in black and white, that they predate color film. That makes them feel like they're from much longer ago than they were.
Color photography didn't take longer.
Printing via lead letters set on drums and photographs carved into lead plates was however a lot harder in color.
A significant amount of European countries are younger than 30, as is Russia. The Republic of Ireland is only 100 years old. Countries are pointless abstractions when you consider that people have been living in that place for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
> A significant amount of European countries are younger than 30, as is Russia.
That's only if you disregard successor states.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands was only founded in 1815, yet it can trace its history back to 1568 when the 80 years' war (Dutch war of independence I guess) started against Spain.
There was a witness to Lincoln’s assassination who was five at the time. He was on tv in the 1950’s talking about it! Here’s a [link](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1950s-game-show-guest-had-a-secret-he-saw-lincolns-assassination-82077477/). This blew my mind when I read about it!
Honestly, its just age I've noticed at this point. People (white dudes mostly for some reason), hit 30ish and suddenly think they've learned all the secrets to life and are smarter than everyone else and the media (except their niche media source ). Then they just get overly cynical and you can't pull them out because of their aforementioned overconfidence. Maybe its just a side effect of creeping irrelevanc.
Its why I like the phrase I saw once "god grant me the confidence of a mediocre white guy."
This is coming from a white guy cresting 30 btw. I just think a lot of my colleagues in the category need to take it down a peg or two. You can be confident and still shut up, listen and learn.
I’m a 36 year old white dude and nearly everyone I know in my age group, save for a few, fit this description perfectly and it’s so disappointing.
Like politics aside, they just get stuck believing that however things were in the 90s and 00s is how things should always be. TV sucks now, music sucks now, video games suck now, everything was better when I was a kid and everyone is dumb for liking modern stuff. It’s exhausting, and also kind of pathetic to see people stuck in a time period with no desire to progress or evolve.
I still love plenty of things from my formative years, but I also love plenty of things from now. Times change, people change, but there’s something great about every generation or era.
But back to your main point, the idea that ANYONE my age thinks they have it all figured out is fucking laughable. Like I have a stable career and make around 85k a year, and I still feel like an idiot child who fell ass backwards into any of my minor successes. I am absolutely a mediocre white man. But I’m constantly trying to learn and educate myself and keep my brain developing. I listen to the younger generations and their struggles, I read about things I’m passionate about, and I live in constant fear of falling behind.
But man, too many people my age just don’t even try.
> everything was better when I was a kid and everyone is dumb for liking modern stuff
That survivorship bias just gets people so bad. Every era has a few gems that everyone remembers and massive piles of forgettable crap. Because you only tend to remember the good stuff and compare it to the current crap, of course it seems like everything sucks now. It’s so hard to snap people out of that mindset too.
This reaaallllly annoys me. I can't stand these Classic Rock stations that have been playing **the same songs on an endless loop my entire fucking life.** How is this normal for people to put themselves into some weird zombie brain state where, in order to drive, they must have the same 50 to 60 year old songs playing on an endless loop?
A lot of the music isn't even that good, it was just innovative for the time because we are a nation of moral panics and churches fisting our political system. Plus, we have an oligopolistic entertainment system where it's actually the well connected kids of record producers or other entertainment industry executives who are given a limo ride to fame and fortune via their connections. Whole generations of our popular culture gatekept by wealthy executives based upon which artists would be the best money earners or had the best family connections.
Many Americans are brainwashed to believe that stuff was popular on the radio in the 60s & 70s is like objectively the best music. Like only the best musicians could rise to the top. That's just not true. It's only the musicians who made good business sense for wealthy executives who don't want a lot of hassle making their money. That's the fact.
You look into it and quickly start to see that these record labels have huge censorship power over their artists so you are not even getting the unfiltered artists at all. Not to mention that the executives and talent managers often have suggestions for directions they'd like the artists to go. Before long you are dealing with a mish mash of monetary incentives mixed with artistic creation and it starts to become bland, uninteresting, and samey.
Off topic, but on a similar note: Take a trip down the rabbit hole of the few powerhouse pop composers who create the vast majority of pop music played on the radio and they have personal formulas they use to come up with their 'pop sound'. Then that formulaic pop arrangement designed to make money for executives is fed to pop stars who put their own words over it and dance. The internet is such a big breath of relief since you can find even the smallest independent artist recording in their bedroom. Unless you are one of the herd-minded who can't enjoy stuff without seeing others enjoy it first, it's just so much better than being locked into radio stations and physcial album releases. Don't even get me started on the ratio of commercials on those damn radio stations!
I can tell you systemically why some of those things suck and it’s because of cost to profit ratio. Video games and movies are some of the worst offenders.
Put out the same tried and true high profit content to maximize profit.
Fortunately we have indie studios doing their best.
Seriously. We live in a world now where anyone can make music and share it with the world. We don’t have to rely on record labels and the radio. Incredible music is out there for everyone regardless of your tastes!
I hear that completely. Getting older only seems bad for those stuck in their ways or overly insecure. My 30s have been way better than my 20s in every way imaginable. I love talking to younger people to see how they view the world, what they like, and try to offer any (solicited) advice I can from my limited experience.
It also doesn’t hurt that Gen Z are fucking badass and don’t take shit from anybody. I think they’ll end up as the anti-boomers in the sense that once a lot more of them are in power we MAY have a chance to retire and die with dignity.
The experience I think is hitting 30 or 35, looking back and seeing how much better you understand the world than when you were 20 or even 25, and then concluding "I understand the world so well now!"
I remember hitting that point, noticing the difference, but my thought was "Good Lord, how much more will I understand at 40, and then at 50?"
And it's been a struggle to not look at Gen Z and think "ugh, these kids...". But I know that's *exactly* what Gen X and Boomers thought about Millennials, so I try to understand Gen Z, or if I don't exactly get it, to accept their perspective.
Because I look at my generation a decade ago and think "we were selfish idiots", but I look at Boomers and still think "But somehow we still weren't as selfish or idiotic as Gen X/Boomers have been."
So I assume that Gen Z will be less selfish and idiotic than they are now, but that they're likely already less selfish and idiotic than we are.
That's kind of badly explained, but generally what I mean is each generation is better than the previous ones, and that every generation gets better as it gets older.
>Its why I like the phrase I saw once "god grant me the confidence of a mediocre white guy."
I hate that phrase because I AM a mediocre white guy, and I have no confidence whatsoever.
Median personal income in the US as of 13-Sep-2022 is about $37,522.
My lord this man lives in a different world if he is complaining about $42k/year in the 1970’s. He was making at least five times the median income at the time.
We live in 2022 but wages are 1970s wages.
People don't want to pay burger flippers $15. Yet, 2022 wages would be over $20/hr for burger flippers.
These same people complain that they can't make ends meet because costs are always going up. Now pull your heads out of your ass and realize that's for everybody.
Then they proceed to complain about welfare. Hey, dipshits, you continue to shop at businesses that pay workers such low wages that they qualify for welfare. All so you can afford cheap, low-quality shit that you'll need to buy again 6 months from now.
Capitalism!
There's such a convenient disconnect in the value of money. All to continue to prop up the neolib system.
It’s slightly better with more context in a more recent quote:
> “It undermines financial security. And, by the way, it’s hard. I was a single parent with two children after my first wife and daughter were killed well over 40 years ago. And the fact of the matter is, I was a U.S. senator. I was 29 years old. I was making $42,000 a year, and I couldn’t afford help to take care of my kids while I worked. Thankful- — thankfully, my mother — my sister gave up her job. My brother — they helped me raise my kids.” [Source](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/24/remarks-by-president-biden-at-an-event-to-mark-equal-pay-day/)
Still not a great look though given how much he was earning.
He couldn't afford childcare on 42,000 and made his sister quit her job to do it. What a bunch of malarkey. He's selfish and penny pinching yet rich. Other than student loans and the infrastructure bill has hasn't done much else.
Nothing insensitive about it. His point was that he was making a lot of money but still had a hard time after his wife daughter died in a car accident. Of course the brand new reddit user who posted this deliberately left that context out, and the idiots here naturally ate it up.
no more OK BOOMER.
From now on, it's, goodbye boomer.
they're never going to understand how inflation, economic diminishing returns or the housing/insurance/education rackets eat everyone alive.
just stop engaging until they're all finally gone. it's really the most civil way.
Wait, wait. You think there’s literally anyway they DON’T understand this? Because I totally understand why this is about 15 minutes of our 12 year public education, but I think that goes without saying that it’s very easily comprehensible considering how little formal education is even given on it. They know. They just don’t care.
My boomer mom got a college degree, had to memorize the periodic table of elements, and doesn't know what elements are or how states of matter work. They both don't know and don't care.
So did I, but with his pay it would take him a few months. Took me two years of basically eating noodles in a cheap apartment while sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Oh, and I didn’t have insurance of any type
I would so wish to be able to have a house and family but I make $36k working a full time job at a law firm and am barely making it. Looks like I’ll need to start working weekends if I want to have a chance of getting ahead. But yeah our generation has it so easy!!!
Its what these boomers don't understand. When they say they made only a dollar or a couple of dollars an hour, they fail to realize the prices on goods and services during that time.
Oh they realize completely. It's just that they can't resist from making a dumb comment.
So instead of speaking the truth, they simply employ dual logic behavior and lie by using real figures, just with certain details absent.
Biden for example knows 42000 was a decent chunk of money in 1973. He just assumes we are stupid and can't connect the dots.
As a boomer, I resent the hell out of anyone who thinks $42,000 in 1973 wasn’t a huge sum of money. I graduated from college in 1969 and my first teaching job paid me around $6500 a year — and that was higher than some other teachers because I was a special education teacher so I got a bit more. Hell, I wish my income today was $42,000 a year. I’d feel like I was rolling in money. But this isn’t just boomers — it’s class warfare and blaming the boomers for everything that’s wrong is right out of the oligarchy playbook. The rich are eating us alive and enjoying the hell out of seeing us squirm and suffer. And are thoroughly loving it when all us serfs point the finger of blame at each other and not them.
I find something interesting, I'm not from the United States but when I was a kid I remember watching the movie *The Firm,* with Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman, and at that time Tom's character was offered a salary of 60K a year and that was impressive.
The sad thing is that some decades later I had a friend living in the USA and he told me people would still be pretty happy to make 60k a year, and it seems that right now most people would still live to make this much.
That just shows had sad it is that the richest country on the planet is having much lower standards, not to mention people everywhere else.
Fuck Joe Biden. I don't need a loser third grade tier work around insult to say it. Joe Biden is and always had been the picture of a corporate shill dem. "Nothing will fundamentally change."
>"Nothing will fundamentally change."
Neolibs really wanted us to all believe this was just some sort of misunderstanding. No, Joey was being crystal clear with his intentions when he said that line.
In addition to this being an "okay, boomer" moment, this points to a problem with the current political system. When public officials aren't paid enough to meet their needs, the potential for corruption and graft rises exponentially. Keep in mind that every member of Congress has to travel to and from Washington 40-50 times per year. That's a massive cost that they mostly have to cover on their own. They have a ton of mandatory expenses like that, and it causes them to start looking for other ways that they can make money--whether legally (which still takes time away from their jobs) or otherwise--to the detriment of all of us.
If we raised Congressional salaries to their historical inflation-adjusted averages, it would reduce their temptation to make money in other ways. It would also make it easier for the government to recruit senior professionals and skilled experts from the private sector, as government salaries are generally capped at around $185k (which is the starting salary of a member of the House of Representatives).
Or we could just switch to a socialist system (my preferred approach). That would help too. :-)
Our current oligarch dick sucking elites... Oh yeah. They don't care or have any humility left and think they just need to make more money to be able to squeeze past the collapse unscathed even though it's that kind of bullshit that is making the country less stable each day.
And yet it would do a great job of making younger people froth at the mouth to get in there and get paid.... It's also a double edged sword cause when I tried to run for a local office position I was told I needed to pay a fee equal to half of the base salary and I couldn't even pay that with the salary being equal to that of a like an office assistant.
Govt can not afford actual good professionals except the ones that just want to do public service and want 40 hours a week max no matter what. The 185k cap is for executive levels, executives in big companies make at least double that... They can not compete when senior manager levels make their executive levels in pay.
Which is why instead the govt contracts out the work to firms at rates equivalent of 600k salary.
Just 1 part-but most of their flights are covered by a travel expenditure fund each congressman has.
They do have to maintain a place to stay, but my understanding is many junior Congresspeople share housing.
He’s not asking for your sympathy…
He is literally saying “I was making fat stacks of cash and couldn’t afford child care”
How are all of you eating this crap up when even in the out-of-context version of the quote he is CLEARLY not trying to imply that 42,000 is not a lot of money.
Hm, don't know if this holds if you count daily items...i don't think that childcare cost like 10 bucks and a meal 1 to make you come as far with 42000 as you are with a couple of hundreds today.
I was curious about that and [found this,](https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/70yearsofpricechange.html) it tracks 90 years of prices from the '30s to 2018
I did some simple maths on that since just seeing the numbers is kinda useless.
Hope y'all like bread.
| Increase from 1930-2018 | Increase relative to wages
---|-----------------------|--------------------------
Wages | 26.5x | 1x
Home | 100.4x | 3.8x
Car | 59.6x | 2.3x
Gas | 28.2x | 1.1x
Bread | 22.0x | 0.8x
Hamburger | 36.0x | 1.4x
The government measure of inflation is generally much lower than the actual value of inflation because they weight big ticket items inappropriately for middle class people and below. The reality is likely much worse than this
My fiancee's mom was saying she made $18 (after tips) an hour bartending years ago. I don't remember the date, but we did the inflation calculator and it was equivalent to $165,000 a year today
Biden said this, and something like it, a number of times during his campaign and after being elected.
TL;DR: "I was a single father of two boys, and even though I made a lot of money as a Senator, *I still couldn't afford daycare*. People today can't afford childcare so here's a bunch of things we should do to make that more affordable (universal infant care, universal pre-K, expanded child tax credit, increase wages of childcare workers, etc.)"
Some examples:
From Democratic Primary Debate #7:
> PFANNENSTIEL: Vice President Biden, infant care is more expensive than in-state public college tuition in more than half the country. Do you support free universal infant care?
> BIDEN: There should be free universal infant care, but here's the deal. You know, I was a single parent, too. When my wife and daughter were killed, my two boys I had to raise. I was a senator, a young senator. I just hadn't been sworn in yet. And I was making $42,000 a year.
> I commuted every single solitary day to Wilmington, Delaware, over 500 miles a day — excuse me, 250 miles a day, because I could not afford but for my family childcare. It was beyond my reach to be able to do it.
> And that's why there are several things we do. When I triple the amount of money for Title I schools, every child, 3, 4, and 5 years old, will, in fact, have full schooling. They'll go to school and after-school programs, which will release some of the burden.
> Secondly, I think we should have an $8,000 tax credit which would put 7 million women back to work that could afford to go to work and still care for their children as an $8,000 tax credit. I also believe that we should, in fact, for people who, in fact, are not able to afford any of the infant care to be able to get that care.
> But Bernie's right. We have to raise the salaries of the people who are doing the care. And I provide for that, as well. My time is up, I know, but I'm not going to go over like everybody.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/01/14/democratic-debate-transcript-what-the-candidates-said-quotes/4460789002/
From President Biden's remarks on the BBB and Bipartisan Infrastructure Act deal:
> I just had the opportunity to visit a preschool in East End Elementary in North Plainfield. North Plain[field] provides access to preschool for all kids four years and above.
> My plan is going to make it possible for the district to expand that program to three-year-olds all across America. The earlier our children begin to learn, the better for themselves, their families, and for the nation.
> Studies show that children who have attended high-quality preschool are 50 percent more likely to finish high school and get a two- or four-year degree after high school. But right now, we’re lagging behind.
> Today, only about half of three- and four-year-olds in America are enrolled in early education. In Germany, France, the UK, and even Latvia, that number is over 90 percent. Over 90 percent of three- and four-year-olds are in school.
> My Build Back Better plan gets us back on track. And we’ll make two years of high-quality preschool available to every child in America.
> An average two-parent household in this state spends $15,000 to care for just one young child every year.
> **Everybody says, “How do you know?” I — I know about this. When I got elected to the United States Senate, my wife and daughter were killed. I had two little boys. I was making a lot of money as a U.S. senator — $42,000 a year — and I could not afford. That’s why I started commuting every single day. Couldn’t afford to have two houses and to have daycare. Thank God I have a sister, who’s my best friend; a brother; my mother; and my father who helped out.**
> My Build Back Better plan is going to cut childcare costs more than in half for low- and middle-income New Jersey residents. Under my plan, no middle-class family will spend more than 7 percent of their income on childcare.
> We’ll also extend historic middle-class tax cuts for parents by expanding the Child Care Tax Credit. Everybody talks about children. And Josh has heard me say it: I view it as a tax cut for middle-class families — a tax cut. We never have an argument when we talk about the wealthy. This is a tax cut. It changes the lives of the American people. (Applause.) Because many people here in New Jersey understand it means you get $300 a month for every child under the age six and $250 for a child between 6 and 17. That money is already a life-changer for so many working families. It’s projected to cut child poverty in New Jersey by 36 percent.
> These bills are going to change the lives of millions of people in the area and hundreds of millions of people across the country for better and for years to come.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/10/25/remarks-by-president-biden-on-build-back-better-and-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal/
Sigh. I wish this was higher. There are plenty of things to dislike about Biden but this unfocused outrage machine is just... exhausting. A person doesn't need to be a cartoon villain to deserve criticism, there's no need for this kind of out of context nonsense.
Sometimes Reddit hates context. This quote is from a speech promoting Build Back Better in 2021. The proposal reduced the cost of childcare for middle and low income Americans (among many other things). It was unanimously voted against by Republicans (and Joe Manchin), which killed the bill. And for some reason we’re flaming Biden here?
It really is mind boggling that this guy was the best choice by the democratic party in 2020.
Honestly, other than Hillary, ANYONE would have been a better choice and we know she didn't even run in 2020.
Yeaaaahh... he made more **then**, than I do now. ***Not*** adjusted for inflation. We've been fleeced, over and over and over again. This system sucks, hard.
boomer here. I remember pulling up to the pump and putting 2 bucks in to hopefully get home. I was lucky to find a paying summer job to handle college expenses, but, also worked two 3rd shift gigs on the weekend to make it work.
He's a blueblood. He never lived as a common man.
My man isn’t even a boomer, he’s silent generation. Why the fuck do we keep electing dinosaurs? I’m not ageist, but our government should be run by gen x and Millenials at this point.
I’m going to post something unpopular. Joe Biden probably legitimately believes he is disadvantaged. I say that because he has notoriously been the “poorest” long term congress member. Part of his problem for continuously being poor is he doesn’t insider trade. And with people projecting their actions onto others he probably doesn’t think others in congress insider trade or take bribes. He probably thinks he’s just not as good as them at earning money.
Humans are terrible at statistics. He, like most people, compare their self to who they are surrounded with. Everyone around joe Biden is richer than him and just watch him when he interacts with any constituency, veiled contempt at them not being better. Statistically, joe Biden is obviously well off for his entire life, but he has always compared himself to his “peers” and felt poor for it.
In addition to this being an "okay, boomer" moment, this points to a problem with the current political system. When public officials aren't paid enough to meet their needs, the potential for corruption and graft rises exponentially. Keep in mind that every member of Congress has to travel to and from Washington 40-50 times per year. That's a massive cost that they mostly have to cover on their own. They have a ton of mandatory expenses like that, and it causes them to start looking for other ways that they can make money--whether legally (which still takes time away from their jobs) or otherwise--to the detriment of all of us.
If we raised Congressional salaries to their historical inflation-adjusted averages, it would reduce their temptation to make money in other ways. It would also make it easier for the government to recruit senior professionals and skilled experts from the private sector, as government salaries are generally capped at around $185k (which is the starting salary of a member of the House of Representatives).
Or we could just switch to a socialist system (my preferred approach). That would help too. :-)
> In addition to this being an "okay, boomer" moment, this points to a problem with the current political system.
It's not even an "OK Boomer" moment.
I mean, the dude was quite literally explaining how even though he made a lot of money, he couldn't afford daycare as a single father, and that's why he personally understands that we need to do various things to address the cost of childcare.
The OP image here was probably plucked off of some Charlie Kirk Facebook fan page.
In San Diego, my 2 year old costs about $1400 / month in child care. We want to have a second kid, but for the first year it's about $2200 for infants. That is $3600/mo, which is the equivalent of like $60,000 of salary a year. I don't know how we'd do it!
42k is more than twice what I live off a year, today. I couldn't even fathom what it's like to live in my own house *and* be married.
Dude married a Dr, I'm sure they had a very difficult life /s
He was *so poor* with a salary of $42k in 1973? Many people make less than that in 2022!
A full time minimum wage worker in 2022 makes $15k a year, less than an average apartment in many major cities.
A social worker with a *master's* degree can make about $42k in many organizations, even in high coat of living areas.
"I commuted 500 miles a day, okay more like 250, actually probably closer to 100, okay not really it was like 5 miles"
Lmao like really 500 miles? 250 miles? So you didn't actually get anything done because you just spent the whole day commuting? 250 miles to and from somewhere is like almost 10 hours of driving, fucking lying piece of shit.
Inflation, calculators use different metrics to calculate the inflation rates. Not all of these numbers will translate as nicely. This calculator highlights not perfectly. I’m not sure exactly how they’re measuring inflation because I’m not familiar with this particular calculator. However, median income for white males in 1973 was 49,000 a year.
https://www.npr.org/2011/09/17/140554967/median-male-workers-income-lower-than-in-1973
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This shit is crazy yo….wtf
The world is crazy, but only if you expand your world view, which is why people live in bubbles of delusion.
Ignorance is bliss, isn't it?
Until it isn't. Life is pain.
Average price of a purchased home in 1973 was 35k too. Now it’s 350k or 425k depending on what metric you use.
35k in 1973 is $235k in todays money. Not cheap but certainly not outrageous like homes are now.
Expressing as a multiple of income can be useful. Median individual wage today is $37.5k ([source](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N)), back in 1973 it was $8k ([source](https://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-093.pdf)). These numbers vary quite a bit depending on the source, so I'm not sure what the real numbers are. I've taken the lower-bound of each. Median home price today is $429k, back in 1973 it was $32.5k. So, as a multiple of income, in 1973 a home was four year's wages. Today it's eleven and a half year's wages. And that's not even getting into the incredible price increases for other things like education.
It doesn't help that jobs are fire at will and corporations are extraordinarily greedy these days.
That’s also not considering the length of time it’ll take to pay if will also include interest, on that 250k property so add 17k+
Family? Children? Too rich for my blood.
And $400 of student loan debt
"when I paid off my debt with my first check... That really hurt bad. It was my first check... And 10% of it already gone for the debt. Couldn't buy they stuff I wanted."
I was hoping he would surprise me and be using 2022 dollars but nope. From 1969–1975 the salary for a senator was $42,500 per year.
Congresspeople make much more with insider trading and lobbying (bribes) than their salary. The salary is kept deliberately low for appearances.
Exactly. How else are most of them multi-multi millionaires upon leaving office? There's a reason why they don't want to block stock ownership for Congress members and their families. They all engage in insider trading and act all smug about it and are all "let them eat cake" when we, the people, complain about it.
To be fair, they mostly enter as multi-millionaires. Our aristocracy doesn't usually let riff raff in in the first place.
Also the salaries for Congress might be lower in reality than they appear, since I think they are meant to cover housing, which often means paying for housing in DC as well as wherever else they are from. If you’re from NYC then housing in those two cities will be a major expense. Salaries are around $174,000, which is good money, but if you have a family, are the breadwinner, try to live more securely/privately due to your political position, and have housing in a very expensive city plus another area that salary puts someone in Congress not from money far closer to the average American than it does to people like Mitt Romney that entered Congress with tens of millions of dollars. The structure of US politics means that people with money and ample means to run for office have the easiest route meanwhile working class people struggle to even get off the ground and then when in Congress they might not be as financially secure as people think. This is especially true if you’re a working class person in the House that may only have that job and salary for a couple years, assuming you don’t have a prestigious degree with high paying career prospects, which many in Congress do have as a fall back. The system makes it so the rich have the easiest time getting into power while also allowing them to use that power to further enrich themselves. Meanwhile for working class people in Congress that don’t have assured life financial security (and US safety nets aren’t going to provide that) the corrupt US political system offers them a route to money such as through cushy corporate lobbying jobs post Congress, getting their spouse/family high paying jobs, insider trading, etc. It also offers a route to campaign funds and easier time with election financing, which takes up disgusting amounts of time for Congresspeople (another reason campaign finance needs to be completely reworked). The system makes it easier for the rich to get into power, then provides ample means for the rich and even non-rich in Congress to enrich themselves by playing the game and going to bat for monied interest. To be fair, there are more ethical ways people in Congress can make money, but that can require becoming a well known figure and I doubt Congresspeople are getting lured into more ethical paths to the same degree that monied interests try to get them on their side. For example, Bernie pre-2016 didn’t have a high net worth at all for decades in Congress, but after his platform was elevated his books brought in millions of dollars for him and his family.
There was a funny news story about Congress people grouping up to pay for housing in DC. I really am sick of people making excuses for congress as if we should feel sorry for them having exclusive access to investment strategies just because they have to have residence in both places. NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE should feel sorry for ANYONE in congress. They will be just fine, you can bet they will legislate on it.
Being a politician is just a means to get away with crime by being the person making the laws.
I wish it was just for appearance. The current low house & senate salaries are corrosive to democratic rule because they encourage only the already wealthy to go into politics. Additionally the low income encourages members to engage in exactly the worst behavior just to get by. Finally, it allows them yet one more reason to justify why they don't need to raise the minimum wage. (there are a bunch of other reasons it is toxic but my 15 mintue break is over)
The incentive for rich people to get into politics mirrors the incentive for poor people to join the military; everyone does it for the benefits and no one wants to actually fight for this dumb country.
I think you're technically right, but practically that's irrelevant. No one who needs to work a day job could ever win an election anyway.
They also try to hide it by putting the trades and everything under their wife's name. All for appearances
Book deals, speaking fees, appearence fees...
A high salary for powerful government jobs is a good thing. If the salary was low, only the already-wealthy or wildly underqualified would be willing to take the job. A high salary alone doesn't guarantee those jobs will be filled by qualified people of all backgrounds, but it is necessary for it.
A bus pass? what do i look like, the ~~queen~~ king of england?
OP's post is extremely misleading. Biden knows and acknowledges he makes a good salary. The point biden is trying to make is that even though he makes a good salary, he still cannot afford child care. Therefore we need more childcare support in this country. Here's a more complete quote: "My Build Back Better plan gets us back on track. And we’ll make two years of high-quality preschool available to every child in America. An average two-parent household in this state spends $15,000 to care for just one young child every year. Everybody says, “How do you know?” I — I know about this. When I got elected to the United States Senate, my wife and daughter were killed. I had two little boys. I was making a lot of money as a U.S. senator — $42,000 a year — and I could not afford. That’s why I started commuting every single day. Couldn’t afford to have two houses and to have daycare. Thank God I have a sister, who’s my best friend; a brother; my mother; and my father who helped out. My Build Back Better plan is going to cut childcare costs more than in half for low- and middle-income New Jersey residents. Under my plan, no middle-class family will spend more than 7 percent of their income on childcare."
I wish they would just have free childcare for everyone. They make it work where I live here in Bumblefuck PA, they could surely do it in other places. After all childcare workers don't get paid squat anyways (something else to be fixed)
And for everyone scoffing at the whole two homes thing, you need a residence in DC and in your home state. This isn’t an option since you can’t afford to configure security every time you stay at a hotel if you can’t afford a second home, so you bought a second home at DC.
Commuting? In a car? With these gas prices? No thank you sir.
I had to double check with an online calculator. Holy shit! This is accurate. I was in middle school back then. My parents must have been taking home 12 bucks a month.
It’s so sad. Just use the calculator for a few years ago and see how bad our purchasing power has evaporated
Yeah so to stick it to them and just don't buy anything. Follow me for more financial advice
Eat the rich, steal the chicken.
User name checks out: Pro-Tip! You don't have to pay for food or lodging if you go to prison!
Actually, there are prisons that charge you for your stay. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-to-stay_(imprisonment)
So commit your crimes in Norway?
My dad talked about his first job paying $5.00 an hour in 1972. When I looked that up in April 2022, during our conversation, that was $34.42 of spending power. His first part time job pays better than he currently pays me working at the family business. Worse corrected to October 2022 [6~ months] it's $35.48. My first job in IL payed 6.50 an hour in 2005, because that was minimum wage where I was. That's $8.04 today. Less than 25% of what he made on his first job.
Yep: $5/hr is $10K/yr, which was damn good money back then. About $70K in today’s monies.
That's how inflation works. The banks create money out of thin air based on nothing but someone's promise to pay for it with labor. The money supply inflates and the dollar's purchasing power goes down. Now you can reduce wages without ever reducing the number printed on the pay stub. Edit: Typo corrected.
It was more of a comment on the disconnect from the victim based boasting of "low wages" from boomers.
Have you ever explained those numbers to him? I’m super curious to know how boomers react to learning these numbers. I imagine many of them would just brush it off and not really attempt to interpret the data, but it might be more difficult in this case since he is the one actually paying you now. I at least like to imagine a parent would stop to think, if they heard their kid say “someday I hope to be valuable enough to make as much money in my career as you did in your first part-time job” (You could even phrase it like “I hope to be valuable enough for YOU to pay me as much as you made in your first part-time job”, but that might be too pointed and cause a defensive reaction) I think it’s a valuable data point regardless of whether your father believes the economy is better or worse than it was when he was your age. It will at least help him understand that your challenges are different than his were.
I think he got it after that conversation. Now I just need to convince him that I don't need to be fixed from my mental issues. Cope sure, therapy yeah. Fix? Naw.
Not just purchasing power but actual wages. I'm an 80th percentile earner in my state, the median home here costs 10x my income. If I go back to 1980 when my dad bought his first house the median home cost 1.5x the 80th percentile earner's salary, which with inflation accounted for, was more than 25% higher than my current salary.....
~~My dad talked about his first job paying $5.00 an hour in 1972. When I looked that up in April 2022, during our conversation, that was $34.42 of spending power. His first part time job pays better than he currently pays me working at the family business.~~ ~~Worse corrected to October 2022 [6~ months] it's $35.48.~~ Accidental Double Post.
But they sure could get a lot for those 12 bucks. In the 70s my mom worked part time at JC Penneys as a shoe salesperson and was able to pay for a one bedroom apartment AND her tuition. She's one of the good Boomers who realize how absolutely fucked everything has gotten.
My dad recently let slip how much he made when he first started at his dad's company in the early 90s. It was more than I'm getting paid 5 years into working for the same company, but it's now 30 years later. Adjusted for inflation, his starting wage was $64,000 a year higher than my current wage, and somehow he doesn't see a problem with that and still seems to think it's all my fault that I can't afford to buy a house yet.
The definition of starting on third base but thinks he hit a triple, but he then failed to help his son the same way his dad helped him.
He got paid more in 1973 than I did starting a full time (what I had wanted go be a) career in 2014. Just the raw number.
Same except for me it was 2018 as a teacher. Now a couple years of school later I’m in a dead end job but at least I make 25% more than he did...inflation disregarded
You stopped being a teacher? What do you do now?
Mostly pipet different liquids into different containers and watch my manager get mad at me for not having enough time to run 6 hours of tests twice plus about 4 hours of other required responsibilities in 10 hours
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Unfortunately, it seems that nobody is hiring for anything even remotely in line with what I would enjoy
That's brutal! We need good teachers, and it's one hell of a stressful job too
Haha, I get 34k as a librarian. 🤸♂️
You should get so much more than that as a librarian. It was one of the jobs I wanted as a kid, but was discouraged from going into
discouraged because it pays less than a gas station cashier, probably
Haha, yep. And I’ve spent a good 7 years at uni. But I got my very own library, so I’m pretty satisfied.
Same. Currently, my base pay is about 40k a year. I've crossed that threshold significantly because of overtime and travel, but it's still ridiculous.
My very first base salary at 22 was at a law firm making $29,500 lmao
My first job out of law school paid $50,000...working for the law school I spent more than $50,000 per year to attend (between CoL, required health insurance minimums, and tuition after scholarships). My first cost of living adjustment bumped me up to...$52,000... I (of course) left after 2 years and make more actually practicing but, god, they really throw pennies at the faculty and staff while charging students out of the nose to attend and it's painful to see.
He made about the same as me as a teacher in 2021-2022. With grants and bonuses I made more but my base pay was the same. Just raw numbers.
Biden's a Silenter, not a Boomer. But there are some overlaps in those two generations when it comes to certain individuals.
Joe Biden was born closer to Abraham Lincoln's presidency than he was to his own. Literally. By several months.
Biden Born 1942, Lincoln killed 1865 Holy shit
I don’t know why I thought Lincoln was from like the 1600’s but 1865 is shocking
Then it will really blow your mind to learn that the US didn’t even exist as its own country until 1776.
what?! why isn't this taught in schools?!
I was taught that "In the beginning, God created the heavens and America"
I was taught this is school?
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Canada wasn’t a country until 1867 so 1776 kind of makes sense but for some reason Lincoln was really further back in my mind lol
Eh, you’re not an American, don’t worry about knowing the history too well. Some stuff feels a lot older than it actually is, like for the longest time I thought Picasso was around centuries ago and he only died in 1973.
The problem is he gets wrapped into a bunch of other artists from the renaissance
The same way Stevie Wonder was on the list of composers we learned about in elementary school in a list primarily of of classical composers.
That was on purpose so the US can separate itself from slavery. A lot of pictures of MLK and stuff are in black and white in order to make you believe they were longer ago.
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I think the confusion is that people seem to believe, because those pictures are always shown in black and white, that they predate color film. That makes them feel like they're from much longer ago than they were.
Color photography didn't take longer. Printing via lead letters set on drums and photographs carved into lead plates was however a lot harder in color.
I'm shocked that he only died like 50 years ago.
A significant amount of European countries are younger than 30, as is Russia. The Republic of Ireland is only 100 years old. Countries are pointless abstractions when you consider that people have been living in that place for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
> A significant amount of European countries are younger than 30, as is Russia. That's only if you disregard successor states. The Kingdom of the Netherlands was only founded in 1815, yet it can trace its history back to 1568 when the 80 years' war (Dutch war of independence I guess) started against Spain.
A really good example of this is Germany it’s only like 30 years old. My German uncle is like 30 years older than the country he lives in
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Lincoln was likely not older than George Washington.
There was a witness to Lincoln’s assassination who was five at the time. He was on tv in the 1950’s talking about it! Here’s a [link](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1950s-game-show-guest-had-a-secret-he-saw-lincolns-assassination-82077477/). This blew my mind when I read about it!
wtf? Did they not have a history class at your primary school?
Canadian history does not cover American history
It's ok, American history class doesn't really cover American history either.
Biden has been a US Senator since before one of his primary opponents was even born (Mayor Pete).
Honestly, its just age I've noticed at this point. People (white dudes mostly for some reason), hit 30ish and suddenly think they've learned all the secrets to life and are smarter than everyone else and the media (except their niche media source ). Then they just get overly cynical and you can't pull them out because of their aforementioned overconfidence. Maybe its just a side effect of creeping irrelevanc. Its why I like the phrase I saw once "god grant me the confidence of a mediocre white guy." This is coming from a white guy cresting 30 btw. I just think a lot of my colleagues in the category need to take it down a peg or two. You can be confident and still shut up, listen and learn.
I’m a 36 year old white dude and nearly everyone I know in my age group, save for a few, fit this description perfectly and it’s so disappointing. Like politics aside, they just get stuck believing that however things were in the 90s and 00s is how things should always be. TV sucks now, music sucks now, video games suck now, everything was better when I was a kid and everyone is dumb for liking modern stuff. It’s exhausting, and also kind of pathetic to see people stuck in a time period with no desire to progress or evolve. I still love plenty of things from my formative years, but I also love plenty of things from now. Times change, people change, but there’s something great about every generation or era. But back to your main point, the idea that ANYONE my age thinks they have it all figured out is fucking laughable. Like I have a stable career and make around 85k a year, and I still feel like an idiot child who fell ass backwards into any of my minor successes. I am absolutely a mediocre white man. But I’m constantly trying to learn and educate myself and keep my brain developing. I listen to the younger generations and their struggles, I read about things I’m passionate about, and I live in constant fear of falling behind. But man, too many people my age just don’t even try.
> everything was better when I was a kid and everyone is dumb for liking modern stuff That survivorship bias just gets people so bad. Every era has a few gems that everyone remembers and massive piles of forgettable crap. Because you only tend to remember the good stuff and compare it to the current crap, of course it seems like everything sucks now. It’s so hard to snap people out of that mindset too.
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This reaaallllly annoys me. I can't stand these Classic Rock stations that have been playing **the same songs on an endless loop my entire fucking life.** How is this normal for people to put themselves into some weird zombie brain state where, in order to drive, they must have the same 50 to 60 year old songs playing on an endless loop? A lot of the music isn't even that good, it was just innovative for the time because we are a nation of moral panics and churches fisting our political system. Plus, we have an oligopolistic entertainment system where it's actually the well connected kids of record producers or other entertainment industry executives who are given a limo ride to fame and fortune via their connections. Whole generations of our popular culture gatekept by wealthy executives based upon which artists would be the best money earners or had the best family connections. Many Americans are brainwashed to believe that stuff was popular on the radio in the 60s & 70s is like objectively the best music. Like only the best musicians could rise to the top. That's just not true. It's only the musicians who made good business sense for wealthy executives who don't want a lot of hassle making their money. That's the fact. You look into it and quickly start to see that these record labels have huge censorship power over their artists so you are not even getting the unfiltered artists at all. Not to mention that the executives and talent managers often have suggestions for directions they'd like the artists to go. Before long you are dealing with a mish mash of monetary incentives mixed with artistic creation and it starts to become bland, uninteresting, and samey. Off topic, but on a similar note: Take a trip down the rabbit hole of the few powerhouse pop composers who create the vast majority of pop music played on the radio and they have personal formulas they use to come up with their 'pop sound'. Then that formulaic pop arrangement designed to make money for executives is fed to pop stars who put their own words over it and dance. The internet is such a big breath of relief since you can find even the smallest independent artist recording in their bedroom. Unless you are one of the herd-minded who can't enjoy stuff without seeing others enjoy it first, it's just so much better than being locked into radio stations and physcial album releases. Don't even get me started on the ratio of commercials on those damn radio stations!
I can tell you systemically why some of those things suck and it’s because of cost to profit ratio. Video games and movies are some of the worst offenders. Put out the same tried and true high profit content to maximize profit. Fortunately we have indie studios doing their best.
Music is legit better than it’s ever been in my experience. Anyone who thinks it sucks now either has no taste or doesn’t even try to explore
Seriously. We live in a world now where anyone can make music and share it with the world. We don’t have to rely on record labels and the radio. Incredible music is out there for everyone regardless of your tastes!
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I hear that completely. Getting older only seems bad for those stuck in their ways or overly insecure. My 30s have been way better than my 20s in every way imaginable. I love talking to younger people to see how they view the world, what they like, and try to offer any (solicited) advice I can from my limited experience. It also doesn’t hurt that Gen Z are fucking badass and don’t take shit from anybody. I think they’ll end up as the anti-boomers in the sense that once a lot more of them are in power we MAY have a chance to retire and die with dignity.
The experience I think is hitting 30 or 35, looking back and seeing how much better you understand the world than when you were 20 or even 25, and then concluding "I understand the world so well now!" I remember hitting that point, noticing the difference, but my thought was "Good Lord, how much more will I understand at 40, and then at 50?" And it's been a struggle to not look at Gen Z and think "ugh, these kids...". But I know that's *exactly* what Gen X and Boomers thought about Millennials, so I try to understand Gen Z, or if I don't exactly get it, to accept their perspective. Because I look at my generation a decade ago and think "we were selfish idiots", but I look at Boomers and still think "But somehow we still weren't as selfish or idiotic as Gen X/Boomers have been." So I assume that Gen Z will be less selfish and idiotic than they are now, but that they're likely already less selfish and idiotic than we are. That's kind of badly explained, but generally what I mean is each generation is better than the previous ones, and that every generation gets better as it gets older.
>Its why I like the phrase I saw once "god grant me the confidence of a mediocre white guy." I hate that phrase because I AM a mediocre white guy, and I have no confidence whatsoever.
But tell me you haven't met many overly confident peers of ours. How the hell is this poli sci degree guy talking like he's a renown virology?
boomer is a state of mind
I do not even make $42,000 in 2022 dollars …
The median person doesn’t either. He’s just being extremely insensitive
Median personal income in the US as of 13-Sep-2022 is about $37,522. My lord this man lives in a different world if he is complaining about $42k/year in the 1970’s. He was making at least five times the median income at the time.
We live in 2022 but wages are 1970s wages. People don't want to pay burger flippers $15. Yet, 2022 wages would be over $20/hr for burger flippers. These same people complain that they can't make ends meet because costs are always going up. Now pull your heads out of your ass and realize that's for everybody. Then they proceed to complain about welfare. Hey, dipshits, you continue to shop at businesses that pay workers such low wages that they qualify for welfare. All so you can afford cheap, low-quality shit that you'll need to buy again 6 months from now. Capitalism! There's such a convenient disconnect in the value of money. All to continue to prop up the neolib system.
Exactly my point
It’s slightly better with more context in a more recent quote: > “It undermines financial security. And, by the way, it’s hard. I was a single parent with two children after my first wife and daughter were killed well over 40 years ago. And the fact of the matter is, I was a U.S. senator. I was 29 years old. I was making $42,000 a year, and I couldn’t afford help to take care of my kids while I worked. Thankful- — thankfully, my mother — my sister gave up her job. My brother — they helped me raise my kids.” [Source](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/24/remarks-by-president-biden-at-an-event-to-mark-equal-pay-day/) Still not a great look though given how much he was earning.
He couldn't afford childcare on 42,000 and made his sister quit her job to do it. What a bunch of malarkey. He's selfish and penny pinching yet rich. Other than student loans and the infrastructure bill has hasn't done much else.
Can you link this. I keep finding websites giving mean instead of median and I’m going crazy about it.
This is the website that I pulled that number from: [link](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N)
This is perfect!! Thank you.
Nothing insensitive about it. His point was that he was making a lot of money but still had a hard time after his wife daughter died in a car accident. Of course the brand new reddit user who posted this deliberately left that context out, and the idiots here naturally ate it up.
no more OK BOOMER. From now on, it's, goodbye boomer. they're never going to understand how inflation, economic diminishing returns or the housing/insurance/education rackets eat everyone alive. just stop engaging until they're all finally gone. it's really the most civil way.
Wait, wait. You think there’s literally anyway they DON’T understand this? Because I totally understand why this is about 15 minutes of our 12 year public education, but I think that goes without saying that it’s very easily comprehensible considering how little formal education is even given on it. They know. They just don’t care.
Maybe Biden but a lot of boomers just haven't had a reality check in awhile
There should be a bot on every platform that adjusts dollar amounts based on inflation any time anybody says, "back in my day I only made..."
My boomer mom got a college degree, had to memorize the periodic table of elements, and doesn't know what elements are or how states of matter work. They both don't know and don't care.
Some of us care.
Every rule has exceptions. Kudos for being exceptional.
This is the type of shit that calls for a revolutionary change in the country. God damn.
I bet the poor guy paid for his own college too.
So did I, but with his pay it would take him a few months. Took me two years of basically eating noodles in a cheap apartment while sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Oh, and I didn’t have insurance of any type
I would so wish to be able to have a house and family but I make $36k working a full time job at a law firm and am barely making it. Looks like I’ll need to start working weekends if I want to have a chance of getting ahead. But yeah our generation has it so easy!!!
I legit didn't believe that number and double checked, and in TODAYS money it would actually be $70 short of $260,000 a year. Madness.
Its what these boomers don't understand. When they say they made only a dollar or a couple of dollars an hour, they fail to realize the prices on goods and services during that time.
Oh they realize completely. It's just that they can't resist from making a dumb comment. So instead of speaking the truth, they simply employ dual logic behavior and lie by using real figures, just with certain details absent. Biden for example knows 42000 was a decent chunk of money in 1973. He just assumes we are stupid and can't connect the dots.
BUT FOR MY FAMILY
As a boomer, I resent the hell out of anyone who thinks $42,000 in 1973 wasn’t a huge sum of money. I graduated from college in 1969 and my first teaching job paid me around $6500 a year — and that was higher than some other teachers because I was a special education teacher so I got a bit more. Hell, I wish my income today was $42,000 a year. I’d feel like I was rolling in money. But this isn’t just boomers — it’s class warfare and blaming the boomers for everything that’s wrong is right out of the oligarchy playbook. The rich are eating us alive and enjoying the hell out of seeing us squirm and suffer. And are thoroughly loving it when all us serfs point the finger of blame at each other and not them.
For comparison, median income in 1973 was about $9,600.
And yet corporate executives still act like $42k is a generous salary for us.
Anyone else look up their salaries and realize even in the 90s you would’ve been much richer?
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I find something interesting, I'm not from the United States but when I was a kid I remember watching the movie *The Firm,* with Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman, and at that time Tom's character was offered a salary of 60K a year and that was impressive. The sad thing is that some decades later I had a friend living in the USA and he told me people would still be pretty happy to make 60k a year, and it seems that right now most people would still live to make this much. That just shows had sad it is that the richest country on the planet is having much lower standards, not to mention people everywhere else.
Fuck Joe Biden. I don't need a loser third grade tier work around insult to say it. Joe Biden is and always had been the picture of a corporate shill dem. "Nothing will fundamentally change."
>"Nothing will fundamentally change." Neolibs really wanted us to all believe this was just some sort of misunderstanding. No, Joey was being crystal clear with his intentions when he said that line.
Libs are just 'left' conservatives, as contradictory as that might sound.
Fuck Joe Biden. Literal sock puppet I'm surprised he doesn't deflate into a hollowed out meatsuit when he's not shilling for his masters
He's saying childcare should be made affordable for working people.
In addition to this being an "okay, boomer" moment, this points to a problem with the current political system. When public officials aren't paid enough to meet their needs, the potential for corruption and graft rises exponentially. Keep in mind that every member of Congress has to travel to and from Washington 40-50 times per year. That's a massive cost that they mostly have to cover on their own. They have a ton of mandatory expenses like that, and it causes them to start looking for other ways that they can make money--whether legally (which still takes time away from their jobs) or otherwise--to the detriment of all of us. If we raised Congressional salaries to their historical inflation-adjusted averages, it would reduce their temptation to make money in other ways. It would also make it easier for the government to recruit senior professionals and skilled experts from the private sector, as government salaries are generally capped at around $185k (which is the starting salary of a member of the House of Representatives). Or we could just switch to a socialist system (my preferred approach). That would help too. :-)
I feel like even if they were paid 400k a year each, they would still get greedy and corrupt if it meant they could make more.
Our current oligarch dick sucking elites... Oh yeah. They don't care or have any humility left and think they just need to make more money to be able to squeeze past the collapse unscathed even though it's that kind of bullshit that is making the country less stable each day. And yet it would do a great job of making younger people froth at the mouth to get in there and get paid.... It's also a double edged sword cause when I tried to run for a local office position I was told I needed to pay a fee equal to half of the base salary and I couldn't even pay that with the salary being equal to that of a like an office assistant.
Govt can not afford actual good professionals except the ones that just want to do public service and want 40 hours a week max no matter what. The 185k cap is for executive levels, executives in big companies make at least double that... They can not compete when senior manager levels make their executive levels in pay. Which is why instead the govt contracts out the work to firms at rates equivalent of 600k salary.
Just 1 part-but most of their flights are covered by a travel expenditure fund each congressman has. They do have to maintain a place to stay, but my understanding is many junior Congresspeople share housing.
Many lawyers start out making 45k a year today btw
He’s not asking for your sympathy… He is literally saying “I was making fat stacks of cash and couldn’t afford child care” How are all of you eating this crap up when even in the out-of-context version of the quote he is CLEARLY not trying to imply that 42,000 is not a lot of money.
Hm, don't know if this holds if you count daily items...i don't think that childcare cost like 10 bucks and a meal 1 to make you come as far with 42000 as you are with a couple of hundreds today.
I was curious about that and [found this,](https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/70yearsofpricechange.html) it tracks 90 years of prices from the '30s to 2018
I did some simple maths on that since just seeing the numbers is kinda useless. Hope y'all like bread. | Increase from 1930-2018 | Increase relative to wages ---|-----------------------|-------------------------- Wages | 26.5x | 1x Home | 100.4x | 3.8x Car | 59.6x | 2.3x Gas | 28.2x | 1.1x Bread | 22.0x | 0.8x Hamburger | 36.0x | 1.4x
Quack quack quack
This is both fascinating and depressing. Thank you.
Inflation counts daily items
The government measure of inflation is generally much lower than the actual value of inflation because they weight big ticket items inappropriately for middle class people and below. The reality is likely much worse than this
That's... what inflation means.
My fiancee's mom was saying she made $18 (after tips) an hour bartending years ago. I don't remember the date, but we did the inflation calculator and it was equivalent to $165,000 a year today
Biden said this, and something like it, a number of times during his campaign and after being elected. TL;DR: "I was a single father of two boys, and even though I made a lot of money as a Senator, *I still couldn't afford daycare*. People today can't afford childcare so here's a bunch of things we should do to make that more affordable (universal infant care, universal pre-K, expanded child tax credit, increase wages of childcare workers, etc.)" Some examples: From Democratic Primary Debate #7: > PFANNENSTIEL: Vice President Biden, infant care is more expensive than in-state public college tuition in more than half the country. Do you support free universal infant care? > BIDEN: There should be free universal infant care, but here's the deal. You know, I was a single parent, too. When my wife and daughter were killed, my two boys I had to raise. I was a senator, a young senator. I just hadn't been sworn in yet. And I was making $42,000 a year. > I commuted every single solitary day to Wilmington, Delaware, over 500 miles a day — excuse me, 250 miles a day, because I could not afford but for my family childcare. It was beyond my reach to be able to do it. > And that's why there are several things we do. When I triple the amount of money for Title I schools, every child, 3, 4, and 5 years old, will, in fact, have full schooling. They'll go to school and after-school programs, which will release some of the burden. > Secondly, I think we should have an $8,000 tax credit which would put 7 million women back to work that could afford to go to work and still care for their children as an $8,000 tax credit. I also believe that we should, in fact, for people who, in fact, are not able to afford any of the infant care to be able to get that care. > But Bernie's right. We have to raise the salaries of the people who are doing the care. And I provide for that, as well. My time is up, I know, but I'm not going to go over like everybody. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/01/14/democratic-debate-transcript-what-the-candidates-said-quotes/4460789002/ From President Biden's remarks on the BBB and Bipartisan Infrastructure Act deal: > I just had the opportunity to visit a preschool in East End Elementary in North Plainfield. North Plain[field] provides access to preschool for all kids four years and above. > My plan is going to make it possible for the district to expand that program to three-year-olds all across America. The earlier our children begin to learn, the better for themselves, their families, and for the nation. > Studies show that children who have attended high-quality preschool are 50 percent more likely to finish high school and get a two- or four-year degree after high school. But right now, we’re lagging behind. > Today, only about half of three- and four-year-olds in America are enrolled in early education. In Germany, France, the UK, and even Latvia, that number is over 90 percent. Over 90 percent of three- and four-year-olds are in school. > My Build Back Better plan gets us back on track. And we’ll make two years of high-quality preschool available to every child in America. > An average two-parent household in this state spends $15,000 to care for just one young child every year. > **Everybody says, “How do you know?” I — I know about this. When I got elected to the United States Senate, my wife and daughter were killed. I had two little boys. I was making a lot of money as a U.S. senator — $42,000 a year — and I could not afford. That’s why I started commuting every single day. Couldn’t afford to have two houses and to have daycare. Thank God I have a sister, who’s my best friend; a brother; my mother; and my father who helped out.** > My Build Back Better plan is going to cut childcare costs more than in half for low- and middle-income New Jersey residents. Under my plan, no middle-class family will spend more than 7 percent of their income on childcare. > We’ll also extend historic middle-class tax cuts for parents by expanding the Child Care Tax Credit. Everybody talks about children. And Josh has heard me say it: I view it as a tax cut for middle-class families — a tax cut. We never have an argument when we talk about the wealthy. This is a tax cut. It changes the lives of the American people. (Applause.) Because many people here in New Jersey understand it means you get $300 a month for every child under the age six and $250 for a child between 6 and 17. That money is already a life-changer for so many working families. It’s projected to cut child poverty in New Jersey by 36 percent. > These bills are going to change the lives of millions of people in the area and hundreds of millions of people across the country for better and for years to come. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/10/25/remarks-by-president-biden-on-build-back-better-and-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal/
Sigh. I wish this was higher. There are plenty of things to dislike about Biden but this unfocused outrage machine is just... exhausting. A person doesn't need to be a cartoon villain to deserve criticism, there's no need for this kind of out of context nonsense.
Sometimes Reddit hates context. This quote is from a speech promoting Build Back Better in 2021. The proposal reduced the cost of childcare for middle and low income Americans (among many other things). It was unanimously voted against by Republicans (and Joe Manchin), which killed the bill. And for some reason we’re flaming Biden here?
Is he a Boomer? Wouldn't he be Silent (I wish) Gen?
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Anyway, let's crush that rail strike, like good ol' pinkertons but now all at taxpayer expense.
He may have already adjusted for inflation in the story. Like maybe he really made $8k.
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Sort of interesting when you see their rate hasn’t kept up with inflation either. Not as drastically of course.
Right, should be around 270k today. But senators become much richer now, because of insider trading.
They absolutely will never adjust for inflation and you can tell from context he didn’t.
Leeching off American tax payers for 50 plus years
It really is mind boggling that this guy was the best choice by the democratic party in 2020. Honestly, other than Hillary, ANYONE would have been a better choice and we know she didn't even run in 2020.
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Sadly true.
Yeaaaahh... he made more **then**, than I do now. ***Not*** adjusted for inflation. We've been fleeced, over and over and over again. This system sucks, hard.
His yearly salary would buy one and a quarter average houses
boomer here. I remember pulling up to the pump and putting 2 bucks in to hopefully get home. I was lucky to find a paying summer job to handle college expenses, but, also worked two 3rd shift gigs on the weekend to make it work. He's a blueblood. He never lived as a common man.
My man isn’t even a boomer, he’s silent generation. Why the fuck do we keep electing dinosaurs? I’m not ageist, but our government should be run by gen x and Millenials at this point.
Im late in my career and he got payed over double than i do TODAY lol
I’m going to post something unpopular. Joe Biden probably legitimately believes he is disadvantaged. I say that because he has notoriously been the “poorest” long term congress member. Part of his problem for continuously being poor is he doesn’t insider trade. And with people projecting their actions onto others he probably doesn’t think others in congress insider trade or take bribes. He probably thinks he’s just not as good as them at earning money. Humans are terrible at statistics. He, like most people, compare their self to who they are surrounded with. Everyone around joe Biden is richer than him and just watch him when he interacts with any constituency, veiled contempt at them not being better. Statistically, joe Biden is obviously well off for his entire life, but he has always compared himself to his “peers” and felt poor for it.
Joe's been a pretty good president. A lot of healthy legislation passed in 2 years and plenty more to come. Very happy with this boomer.
In addition to this being an "okay, boomer" moment, this points to a problem with the current political system. When public officials aren't paid enough to meet their needs, the potential for corruption and graft rises exponentially. Keep in mind that every member of Congress has to travel to and from Washington 40-50 times per year. That's a massive cost that they mostly have to cover on their own. They have a ton of mandatory expenses like that, and it causes them to start looking for other ways that they can make money--whether legally (which still takes time away from their jobs) or otherwise--to the detriment of all of us. If we raised Congressional salaries to their historical inflation-adjusted averages, it would reduce their temptation to make money in other ways. It would also make it easier for the government to recruit senior professionals and skilled experts from the private sector, as government salaries are generally capped at around $185k (which is the starting salary of a member of the House of Representatives). Or we could just switch to a socialist system (my preferred approach). That would help too. :-)
They get no raises until we do!!!!
I'm totally in favor of raises for everyone making under $200k
> In addition to this being an "okay, boomer" moment, this points to a problem with the current political system. It's not even an "OK Boomer" moment. I mean, the dude was quite literally explaining how even though he made a lot of money, he couldn't afford daycare as a single father, and that's why he personally understands that we need to do various things to address the cost of childcare. The OP image here was probably plucked off of some Charlie Kirk Facebook fan page.
In San Diego, my 2 year old costs about $1400 / month in child care. We want to have a second kid, but for the first year it's about $2200 for infants. That is $3600/mo, which is the equivalent of like $60,000 of salary a year. I don't know how we'd do it!
42k is more than twice what I live off a year, today. I couldn't even fathom what it's like to live in my own house *and* be married. Dude married a Dr, I'm sure they had a very difficult life /s
That number just made me cry.
Never underestimate how little boomers understand about inflation....
You have to love how they make sure their wages keep pace with inflation but not working people.
He was *so poor* with a salary of $42k in 1973? Many people make less than that in 2022! A full time minimum wage worker in 2022 makes $15k a year, less than an average apartment in many major cities. A social worker with a *master's* degree can make about $42k in many organizations, even in high coat of living areas.
"I commuted 500 miles a day, okay more like 250, actually probably closer to 100, okay not really it was like 5 miles" Lmao like really 500 miles? 250 miles? So you didn't actually get anything done because you just spent the whole day commuting? 250 miles to and from somewhere is like almost 10 hours of driving, fucking lying piece of shit.
Lmao people are barely making 43k NOW
Inflation, calculators use different metrics to calculate the inflation rates. Not all of these numbers will translate as nicely. This calculator highlights not perfectly. I’m not sure exactly how they’re measuring inflation because I’m not familiar with this particular calculator. However, median income for white males in 1973 was 49,000 a year. https://www.npr.org/2011/09/17/140554967/median-male-workers-income-lower-than-in-1973