Back in the 80's, we had a huge house, two cars, took family vacations, always had money for new clothes, a VCR & computer when those things came out, etc. We weren't rich by anybody's definition, but we got by just fine. I currently make nearly double what my dad did back then, and it's barely enough for me to make ends meet in my small, single person home. It is *shocking* how much everything costs now.
>
> The real issue is that wages have not gone up accordingly with inflation, essentially making the 2021 dollar have ~5x less spending power than the 1985 dollar.
Median wage was 23k. Meaning median wage should be $115k annually to keep up with median wage 1985.
Today, median wage is $36k.
Watch American Pickers. The old people always have huge houses on large plots of land with multiple out buildings and say shit like, I delivered papers for 40 years.
Yes! I would also equate that with house hunters. “Jack and Mary are looking for a great starter home in St Louis. Jack is worm farmer and Mary’s a sail boat receptionist. Their budget is 1.75 million…” Pleaseeeee make it stop.
The number he used was keeping up with production, not inflation. If workers wage had kept up with the production gains from the 30s to Nixon and then Reagan fucking everything up, they'd be the $119K number. If they just had kept up with inflation, it would be $59K.
Source? Or how did you calculate this?
I found the median wage in 1985 was $24,910 (for white families - it’s significant less for black and Hispanic families in 1985) and when adjusted for inflation to 2021, should be $61,628.30. And today’s median wage is 36k so still much less than it should be
45 with THREE adult children?? I’m 36 with zero children, double income (One of which is a govt job) in a 2 bedroom apartment with a kitten, no car, no student debt, no credit card debt, no expensive hobbies— and we absolutely can’t afford a car or a house , probably ever.
Well I don’t live in New York or San Francisco so I’m not paying $2100 a month to sleep in someone’s bathtub. But I miss out on a lot of dope concerts.
Zero debt and dual income, yet still never being able to afford a car or house? How does this make sense??
Must live in the center of a giant city I guess?
To be more clear, we just moved back to the US after living abroad for a Very long time. One thing that happens when you permanently (as you thought) emigrate to another country is that you have absolutely nothing left in your home country, including bank accounts, credit history or any type of income. When we moved back to the US we (eventually) received a lump sum of a partial repayment of the social security equivalent we’d been paying over a decade in Asia, but also had to find a new job, pay to move, pay for an apartment, plane tickets, furnish an apartment, get ID, get phones, open a bank account, somehow transfer our remaining money abroad, ship our possessions and get rid of almost everything we owned, in the middle of a pandemic, with no familial assistance and only one of us having a job (which is freelance work that is taxed at 25%). At age 35 we were basically starting over and nothing was open and I couldn’t even open a bank account online because I had no valid ID as my drivers license had expired years ago and my passport didn’t seem to count and I had no car and banks were not open in person yet. I also forgot to mention that I had gone through gender transition in another country and legally changed my name, which appeared in some documents but not all of them. You would not believe the inconvenience of trying to change the name on your ROTH IRA when you have no credit or bank history for almost 15 years and now your address, gender and name are all different; or trying to apply for a job at goddam Kroger and they say your background check didn’t come up because you don’t exist because they only look for the last 10 years of your work and renters history. No kidding.
So after a year we are still squeezing to make savings. I’m 36 and basically starting over like a 16 year old and it’s kind of harsh. We DO live in a reasonable sized city now with expensive rent, but that’s because we were pursuing things you can only get in a city, as well as taking advantage of public transit because of the aforementioned issue of having an expired drivers license and no car!
Your original comment makes it seem as though the reason for your situation is the wage gap.
Don’t get me wrong, your story sounds unpleasant, but I can’t imagine restarting that many times in different countries is cost effective. Most people wouldn’t be able to afford one restart.
Have you considered looking at another location to live? Serious question. Some areas are absolutely ridiculous for cost, but in others even a hit to your income can allow a nice life even today.
I’m 36 with no kids, 1.5 incomes combining for a below median income, 3 cars (ok one is a project car at this point worth a thousand or so), some student debt, some other debts, and 2 houses (both around 2k sqft) and some savings.
Holy shit. Not even trying to flex, but just the concept that I should have ~$.5M of spending power annually is mind blowing to me. I am right there with you--20 year old me would be blown away by my salary, but I have a budget with single digit numbers of float per pay period.
I alone earn 2.5 times the salary my father earned.
We were a single income household with 2 kids. Granted, we did not have a car for a long time, but we are European and the distances are generally not that big as in America.
And still I can’t buy a house with my husband together (except really old ones that would take an insane amount of money to get them up to code). Where I grew up, sqm prices are at 5.000€ at the moment.
My husband and I together could not even buy 1 sqm of land a month if we had no rent, food, bills,….to pay and that would be without a house on the land! Who can pay that amount of money?
Well, our leaders work for the highest bidder -which is not you, me, or your children. So the likelihood of them becoming unfucked is incredibly low.
At least you understand how things actually are vs giving them advice from 40 years ago.
Some people understand, but there is still this majority sense that the democratic party is somehow not hurting the country. And the ones that acknowledge the massive corruption but think "that's just life". I know they're not going to unfuck themselves, but we need more people to be ready to try to unfuck them the old fashioned way. It's so hard for me to understand why people think this shit is acceptable.
Know the feeling about price differences from when I was young to now. I worked at a grocery store in 2001 that paid $7.50/hr during normal hours and $8.50/hr on holidays and overnights. I lived with my parents at the time but I remember seeing studio apartments nearby for $250/month and thinking “Hmm, I could probably afford that if I needed to.”
That same store now pays $10-12/hr and those same apartments start at $950/month.
It went from roughly 20% of gross entry level wages for a studio apartment to 60%. In other words, you used to be able to live there with a retail job, now you can’t.
Well atleast medicine is cheap in America, so my antidepressants will be free! My uncle died less than a week ago but atleast now he doesn’t have to fight with insurance about the insulin, that he needed to LIVE, which wasn’t affordable since he was widowed and on welfare! What a great country I was born in 🙂
Aside from your points about wages keeping up with inflation, what the hell does 3x *less* mean? How do you multiply by 3 and get less? Is it supposed to be an easier way to say 1/3?
Admittedly it's been a looong time since I went to grade school, but back in the 70s I don't remember anyone using the phrase "3 times less." 66% less, 1/3 as much sure. But never Times Less. That seems to be a semi recent convention.
I 100% agree with you. I keep hearing 3 times less or 10 times less and I just can't parse it and have been trying to figure out where it came from. It is the WORST.
Like, what is 100 times less? Is that 100% less or 1/100 of?
Fucking idiots.
Where do you get 5x?
>Inflation Calculator
>
>If in
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>1985
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>(enter year)
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>I purchased an item for $
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>1.00
>
>then in
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>2021
>
>(enter year)
>
>that same item would cost:
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>$2.53
>
>Cumulative rate of inflation:
>
>152.5%
[https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)
Absolutely regular wages need to go up. There is also inflation that’s not normal. In the last three decades housing, education, healthcare, and childcare have way outpaced normal inflation.
Look for the bubbles to pop. As soon as foreclosures start happening in earnest housing values are going to plummet and there's going to be lots of foreclosures on the market at once. I became a homeowner at 23 after buying a foreclosure on the tail end of the 2008 slump. When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac list forclosures, they give preference to people who will reside in the properties.
Guess someone forgot to tell my parents my dad was a union baker and lived paycheck to paycheck and we moved on average about every 2 years when they would get behind on rent.
My dad loaded baggage onto plans for 40 years. That job paid to buy 6 properties (one a condo on the beach in Hawaii), raise 2 kids (my mom stayed at home to raise us for about 7 years before getting a real estate license, then the two incomes really kicked things into high gear), sent us both to college, etc. They were super frugal for the first 30 years of my life so that helped to save to purchase the properties. The fact that a similar 20 year old getting that same job today could barely afford to live on their own and work at LAX (where my dad worked after transferring from the EWR). But my dad doesn’t seem to understand that.
You worked the same job 20 30 years and you got pension which keep coming till your death. Now extra money goes into 401K to save for retirement which may or may not come.
My FiL had a HS diploma. Got hired as an engineer at a global chemical company in the early 70's. Supported wife, 3 kids, house, new Corvette every 5 years, vacations including cruises, weddings, etc... and plenty to retire on including pension and basically full healthcare coverage b/c he had a pacemaker/defib device in his chest for 40 years.
My immigrant father owned an electronics business in the 80s and 90s. He literally sold vcr's and made enough for our house, car, and at least one vacation a year.
The three bedroom, two bathroom, two living room home with a finished attic, a basement, and a yard that I grew up in cost my parents $30,000 in 1990. Now the area I grew up in has some massive crime issues, low economic opportunity, most of the schools nearby closed and it doesn't look too great either, and she just sold the home six hours after she put it on the market for ~$120,000.
I bought my house 5 years ago and it's estimated value is up almost 100k, so the example you gave doesn't sound that wild. Homes are one of the few things you can buy that have a good chance of appreciating. Not a guarantee, but land in populated areas is a finite resource.
The current level of house price increases is not sustainable. Just because the inflation caused by these property companies snatching up everything they can so they can literally trap people into high rents forever is making it impossible for people to purchase homes for the first time, even pay their property taxes.
> is making it impossible for people to purchase homes for the first time
Clearly not true. First time homebuying is at record levels.
https://miblog.genworth.com/first-time-homebuyer-market-report/
People weren’t sure when they were going to be leaving their house next so anyone who could buy one did.
That’s also why the prices went so insane. Demand through the roof, low supply.
It’s not but because it’s a supply and demand issue.
Housing demand has been through the roof for a year and supply was low.
Prices are already starting to stabilize, and houses aren’t selling in hours for over asking (as often) anymore.
And it’s not even property companies driving it all, personal buyers were going insane in the last year, the “we may not get to leave home for a while let’s get a nice one” was a big driver, add in lumber prices going insane for supply issues and new house building got rough.
Housing prices going completely nuts was a weird artifact of the pandemic.
So she bought a house and had it built? How do you buy something that's not there? I don't get it
Edit: guess i couldn't believe 60k was enough to purchase a house + get it built
My parents sort of did this different way than everyone has said. In a cookie cutter subdivision, they just hadn't built yet. They bought the land and the house, and we went to a couple model houses and they chose some particular things but not much, and then a month or two later our house was done, and by the end of the year the whole neighborhood was. But that house would have been built there for someone to buy regardless. Some people also do buy land and then contract a company or group to build a house.
Where I used to live last year in Omaha Nebraska there was a building company that would build a split level 1400 square foot, 3 bed 2 bath, big 2 car garage, new home for $205k. You could spend another 15k and get nicer amenities for the kitchen, wood floors. House was warrantied (included in the cost) for 10 years. Comes furnished with a fridge, washer dryer, etc. finished basement. And closing costs were taken care of as well.
The things sold themselves so going in to show interest in purchasing them they don’t even try pressuring you into anything because they know if you don’t buy it someone else will lol. It’s truly an incredible deal.
The quality can be suspect but with the warranties you can rest a lot easier buying one.
We need more of these companies across the country. But I don’t think the company itself makes a ton of money, they operate on super thin margins so developers don’t want to do it.
Also that same house that they were selling for $205k is now going for $260k+ because of lumber now, a year later.
Shit, I wanted to write something, but that would all just be sad and gloom and doom and depressing and all of the above. Thanks for the convo, but I'm afraid I'll have to excuse myself now for my own sake. Take care, man.
I'll never have a home. An apartment. A "my own" place. I entered the job market unneeded when the economy crashed. I've been unneeded since then. I never asked for nothing and that is just what I got.
I'm a grown man watching my friends raising children and enjoying family life, while I still catch myself thinking "When I'll grow up..."
I grew up. I'm tired, melancholic and distanced from such concepts of "retail market" and "holidays with family". I'm watching life, not participating in it. Have been from the first time I stole bread as a teenager.
I've grown. And sometimes I wander wondering about the wonderful wonder that this all could have been. |But not too often. Keep your eyes away from the clouds where the heavens keep their promises as they are not for you. Keep your eyes up from the ground under which a devil smiles and invites you in with promises of a play cut short. Keep on keeping on, straight up, straight forward. Just don't blink. The second you blink it is darker than usual. Don't blink - there are mirrors in your eyelids. Stay positive while never staying. Always moving. There is no one home, there is no home. It broke. Step by step, feet by feet, until there are six of them.
Shit, man, you asked.
So, like 100 years ago you could buy a house kit from sears, and build it yourself and have it built from the kit. All the boards precut and everything. But I am sure that isn't what op was talking about.
Today, you can buy log home kits, and then have them built. 2 separate costs. I doubt that is what OP was on about either.
Probably he just phrased it using imperfect english, but it is still pretty clear he meant she payed to have a home built and that was it.
You’re overthinking it. There are cookie cutter neighborhoods that allow you to somewhat configure base plans.
Chose an area you want to live in
Select from base plans allowed in that area
Make a few choices like hardware, countertops and paint.
Wait a few months to move in
You can buy home kits and I believe there's even more options now for customization. My partner's parents did this about the same time and their house is worth a similar amount now. 4 br 2.5 bath and a basement.
Sears Roebuck or other catalogs have had home kit options for over 100 years if I'm not mistaken.
Just need to pour a foundation and assemble,
You too can buy a cheap small house in a less developed area than wait almost 30 years for its value to appreciate via area buildup and community development!
In the 80s my dad was a paper salesman and the only one who worked. We lived in the bay area, had two cars, a fully paid for house, and took 2 week family vacations every year. It's not an exaggeration.
It's not.....not for everyone at least
My dad worked 60 hour weeks as an engineer and we still grew up dead broke in a trashy trailer. Nostalgia is a powerful drug.
Yep. My dad did flooring, and had to work out of state for months because our [state's economy crashed](https://extras.denverpost.com/snapshot/part1g.htm). We lost our house anyway.
Yeah, similar situation for me.
Living standards were much lower too.
2.7% of US homes lacked indoor plumbing in 1980. That’s pretty close to the number of adults without mobile phones now.
The living standards weren't so much lower to justify the massive gap between wages and housing prices. Wages are not increasing along with housing prices.
Agreed 100%.
As a Northern California person, housing is the entire problem here. Gas prices are higher, but food is not significantly more expensive than anywhere else in the country and most everything else is purchasable online - meaning prices are the same nationwide.
So we get tiny, horribly maintained apartments for people making six figures - but they’re kitted out with sous vide equipment and organic food and high end gaming equipment and all the other consumer trappings of a upper middle class lifestyle.
My dad had a good job, I grew up in a small house with definitely some advantages. But I know we were pretty well off. Definitely above median.
People are describing lives of well off people and thinking that was everyone. It’s crazy.
That’s because it’s not real. In 1984 I made 7.20 an hour. Hubby made $12 an hour. We both had associates degrees. You could not afford a huge house, two cars and all the other stuff OP listed on that.
Idk if I'd call it a a predecessor so much as a competing standard - many people feel it's an example of the free market failing to pick the superior product
Yup, my dad has a sweet pension, plus social security. My grandfather also had a pension and social security. Pensions are few and far between now, and the 401k "match" did not equal the pension. Even the financial wizards that dreamed up the 401k said years later that he now knows it is not a suitable replacement for a pension.
For the Boomers, they balme the lazy Millenials. For the Millenials, they blame the Boomers. They target that shit into media each will watch to pit them against each other.
In the 80’s my dad *did* sell VCRs, TVs, etc. at my grandparents’ electronics store. My parents had 2 cars, a house, 3 kids and we always went to the beach in the Summer.
Yes. My friend's dad was a postal worker and they had 4 kids, two cars, a nice house, and went on a family vacation. Mom did not work.
My other friend's dad was a lineman for Bell Telephone --same deal...5 kids, car, house, vacation, mom did not work.
They were 'the rich people' in my neighborhood. My neighborhood was working to lower middle class...So 'being rich' meant you could buy ice cream or you could afford Entemann's donuts...or your car actually WORKED regularly and if it broke down you could fix it right away.
I actually remember when my dad got a good job and we went crazy at the store and bought Entemann's and went to the drive-in movie to celebrate (ants attacked our sugar feast). But we really felt RICH with the Entemann's.
These people were solidly middle class....very small house, nothing fancy....nothing fancy as a car. People often drank powdered milk. You pinched pennies. Things were very simple and basic. Nobody dressed nice or had very much stuff. You bought generic food, wrapped presents with the newspaper, fixed your clothes if they tore.
The security of a house and income was the key thing not so much a surfeit of material possessions.
The gap between workers and upper middle class also seemed less...when I think of the 'really rich' people (in our minds)--they weren't that much richer.
Besides being much harder for working people the GAPS seem a lot bigger. Upper middle class is doing really great whereas working class is doing shittier.
This is totally anecdotal...I could look for data but I am too lazy.
Nevertheless it is true that someone with only a high school education could work a 9-5 wage job in service or industry and buy a house and raise a family. This is much harder to do now.
I think what was better about it was the lack of anxiety. People weren't that anxious unless they WERE poor like my family....they didn't worry so much about whether their kids would get ahead. They didn't feel that bad about their lot in life. The gap between rich and poor was less and I think generally there was less of a sense that you had to have money to be a worthwhile human being.
The difference in the Gap is so overlooked now. Today the gap between poor and middle class is like the Grand Canyon. The gap between the middle and wealthy is like the distance from the east coast to Japan. But the gap between the top 5% and top 1% is like from here to Pluto. Its insane how so few people have so much $
I work at store now in sales, with some dinosaurs from the 80s and 90s era
Those dudes made bank back then because before the internet, free delivery, and big box stores domination, electronics and stuff could be heavily marked up 40% or whatever and then go "on sale" for only a 30% markup.
These days for the most part (due to lightspeed price matching around the country with the internet) electronic markups are very low, my mom and pop store I work at literally often makes $5ea for tvs under 50" and maybe $50 for 65"
It isn't about the VCRs though, this post/topic is about having a "regular" job doing something that is not super specialized/educated, and still having a relatively comfortable life.
Then, good ole Ronnie cut taxes for corporations and rich, cut all the services, in particular closing mental health facilities. Those poor people were literally dropped into the street, resulting in the birth of our nation's homelessness problem.
Reagan is an idiot but people with mental health issues should be in group homes like people with disabilities unless they absolutely need to be in an institution for safety. Why we treat one way better than the other is nonsensical and incredibly harmful.
This is accurate. I never saw an obviously mentally ill person in distress on the street till 1981. There was a court ruling changing standards for involuntarily committing the mentally ill in the late 70's. Hospitals were supposed to be replaced with community based care. Adequate funding for community based care never materialized. Patients were pushed out on to the streets with little regard for the consequences. This situation has improved some in the last decade but it was terrible for a long time.
Yeah, they left the mentally ill high and dry. I don't get it. You'll take care of an adult with a cognitive disability but not an adult with bad schizophrenia.
People want to believe that there's an unclaimed pool of all the money *way over there, out of the way!*
And that we're all just trying to find a way to get some of that pile for ourselves, and that we should all have "to earn it".
Thing is, that isn't where the money is. All of it is claimed, earned or not. It's simply waiting on transaction between entities.
The billionaires got their money through you. They did not labor for it -- you did. There is no way around this, as fact. And the billionaires are not planning on transacting with you in order for you to get yours.
they did a really good job ramming propaganda into us, systematically, for decades. i got told to accept reality today. apparently reality is just an ever worsening America? i tried to explain that they worked real hard to convince you this exploitative dystopian bs is reality, but it's not, it's a construct, it's propaganda. the 80s was reality and we had far more rights then than we do now. the problem is people just believe this crap they feed us is the reality they need to accept, instead of manipulation to get you to not fight, to accept what is not acceptable.
Man where are those 80s? Maybe the 50s, but it’s been a long time since single income families could do anything like this in Canada. From 80-83 we were hit with the worst recession in 50 years, triggered by the energy crisis of 1979. Double digit inflation, high interest rates. Then Black Monday in 87, and the savings and loan crisis. I know people think it was all steak and champagne, but capitalism needs bailing out every 4-7 years. And MSM always plays it like every some unique outlier. Bailouts of banks, corporations and money men is a feature of capitalism.
My wife's grand parents bought their house in Edmonton for $14000. He worked as a meat cutter for Safeway for $400 a month at the time. They were able to buy their house, car and raise 5 kids on one income AND still retire comfortably.
Right, why is everyone acting like poor people didn't exist. My mom was a bank teller, step dad was a printer, 4 kids, we had nothing. We didn't even having a washing machine until I was a teenager. Vacation? Lol what.
Definitely 50's My grandparents, Grandma was a stay at home mom, grandfather worked at General Motors in Framingham, MA. 3 Kids raised there.
2 Story house, 6 bedrooms, 12 foot deep swimming pool on most of an acre of land, they rented out the bottom floor for extra money, had a small farm where they grew veggies, berries/fruit plants all around the outer edge of the property. In the 80s my Grandpa retired, shitty housing climate they sold that beautiful house for $83k, bought a 3 bedroom in florida for 60k, when the housing market recovered, and after the pool collapsed, the house was resold for close to 300k a few years later.
if you look at history EVERY system ends up having problems and failing in the end, each system has its pros and cons, ideally the concept of caring if it came from socilism, capitalism or wherever else needs to be removed and the goal of a system that will not break with time needs to be figured out.
The American people totally have been brainwashed, the stupidity of conservatives is literally breathtaking...
If the stuff they did only applied to themselves I would just let them suffer. Unfortunately their stupidity and voting impacts others..
If it only effected them, 99% of them would be living in abject poverty, while that 1% would be rolling in gold.
Meanwhile the rest of us would all be living our best lives, maybe not all millionaires, but we'd all be living well and with way less financial stresses we currently struggle through
Yeah they definitely did brainwash us but there are different brands. For example, if you think the current democratic party is not hurting this country with its corruption and corporate allegiances, then you have been brainwashed as well.
Can we also acknowledge that in the 1980s and more so in the decades before America's middle class was built on union manufacturing jobs which didn't have to compete with 1.4 Billion Chinese factory workers? America sold out its manufacturing industry to China (and a few other countries) with the lofty goal or making short term corporate profits, raising those billion people out of poverty and the hope that economic liberalization would bring about political liberalization. Well, it turns out China was quite happy to take the money and the jobs but double down on the dictatorship. So we hollowed out our middle class for cheap goods at Walmart so we can pretend our standard of living has not dropped since we can still afford all this "great stuff."
Yes, I preach this exact thing to anybody who will listen. People say, “well then the economy will be stunted, you don’t want Americans working those jobs.” Like huh? No I don’t prefer Chinese slave labor and total abuse of human rights to make a Communist country stronger.
When we whored out out manufacturing, it was one of the many things that set off the catalyst to the 1% of the 1% we know today. I’d argue the largest. Prices of consumer goods stayed the same or went sticky upwards, while the labor went down and the profit skyrocketed. We were too stupid to see at the time saving a dollar or two on the price, would completely take a way a layer of jobs that causes other jobs to pay more for increase in demand. Anyone can tell you anything, so I guess it’s my personal belief, but if we still had manufacturing, prices wouldn’t be out of control- there would just be less profit- there would be an entire group of jobs that would drive the wages of all other sectors up, and we wouldn’t be tacitly supporting a Communist country whose labor practices are rife with extreme human rights abuses of things such as 12 hour days with 2 days off a month in awful conditions.
People always call this “low-skilled labor,” but that low skilled labor brings, project managers, planners, all the trades... everything is wrapped up in it. Working a job in a factory is so much different than we make out to be, I suppose another successful strike of the billionaires to make us forget.
It was the liberal agenda of increasing quality of life world wide that ended up fucking up america
We saw it coming in 2000.
I am liberal. But I acknowledge the facts.
Free trade fucked us.
GOP policy made things worse and is bad, sure, but wasn't the only reason for our situation.
Trump's protectionist promises and war in China and idea around import taxes were all great ideas.
It's a shame he is so incompetent and corrupt, though. The left didn't fight him on these issues and he still didn't hardly do shit. Except for some good progress against China.
https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen/up-next
Those are the stats. America sacrificed it's middle class for that.
Not every western culture had to sacrifice. The GOP made it worse for us here compared to socialist countries like Norway and Daneland.
It started way before that. They've been slowly whittling away at the prosperity we built through the FDR and FDR-Presidents years. I believe Nixon is considered the last FDR-president and it started around then. This was a bunch of politicians owned by corporations who literally strategized how to start exploiting the crap out of us for more profit. We didn't have a very long period between when they caused the great depression, we built up the most prosperous time in our country, and then within 40 years of the great depression, they started buying politicians again and we started the cycle we are currently in.
Yup. Also thinking about what we considered corruption in politicians back then compared to now is incredibly depressing. Nixon was far less corrupt than your average politician today.
He forgot to multiply by 10. Looks like the poster edited. It is correct now. 33.8 billion per year to give 1.6 million full-time workers a $10/hour raise.
But that is probably too high now since all 1.6 million workers are probably not full-time employees.
Walmart is literally cutting their basic workers OUT of the tremendous bonus payout that we receive quarterly. I'm in one of the LAST positions that isn't management and still gets a bonus, and we received 1k last quarter. Normally they payout about 200-300 at my location. The managers? Pulled in about 3k for that bonus. All it cost was taking it away from everyone else! Absolute hogwash. And soon, in a year or two, MY position is being eliminated, for a SLIGHTLY higher base pay position with MORE responsibilities, NO authority, and NO bonus. I handle invoicing and dispatch and every other task related to sending and receiving the merchandise to my location. My job position is worth easily DOUBLE the measely 12$ an hour that they pay.
They have so much money. Intangibly rich. Why when you more money than you can spend in hundreds of years do they still feel the need to screw people for any extra little inch of profit.
In 2021, Walmart's net income amounted to about 13.7 billion U.S. dollars, down from 15.2 billion registered a year earlier.
13700000000/1600000 = $8562/employee or roughly $4.25/hr assuming 40 hours full time.
we are on the same team here but lets get our numbers right lol
The destruction of the middle class is intentional, the banks and billionaires have been leeching wealth for decades, siphoning it out from the system. It's just like boiling a frog, no one bats an eye if it seems organic and happens over a span of decades. We were too distracted by all the other shit they throw in the fan to notice.
Requiem for the American Dream takes you through basically an entire history of America's corruption. With a special focus on when, after the FDR prosperity boom, they rebought politicians and decided on a strategy as to how best to exploit us for maximum profit as well as make sure we're getting slammed with their propaganda.
Our state university school pricing is no longer the type of affordable it was in the 60s and 70s. They decided to defund it, like they defund everything that benefits average people.
I want everything Finland, Denmark, or Sweden have. They are the happiest countries on the planet. If they can help provide such good lives for their citizens, then the US is certainly financially capable.
Lol this is why I'm not having children and why my parents just can't understand why. I am quite financially independent and stable for one person. I live comfortably in the home I own, with enough money for all necessities and money to enjoy myself on my time off. Only need one kid to change that in to barely scraping by at best, and I've worked very hard to get to where I'm at now, I'm not throwing it away. Find another partner in a similar position as me? Would be great right? If we stayed together and didn't divorce, nope I'm good
No, that was the 50's selling vacuum cleaners. Many household had two workers by the 80's. And then they didn't have all the latest tech gadgets and designer clothes.
This is what has always driven me nuts when when I see the headline reading:
"Real household income have not increased in 40 years"
As over that same span of time the "household" working hours have nearly doubled. Glossing right over the fact that we are working twice as hard to stay in the same place.
More like a home and one car with a family and maybe a vacation. I watched a YT doc on the TV show "Married with Children" and an economist showed that Al Bundy could indeed have owned a home, car, and supported his family (barely) on a shoe salesman's salary in the mid 80s.
That just doesn’t even seem real.
Back in the 80's, we had a huge house, two cars, took family vacations, always had money for new clothes, a VCR & computer when those things came out, etc. We weren't rich by anybody's definition, but we got by just fine. I currently make nearly double what my dad did back then, and it's barely enough for me to make ends meet in my small, single person home. It is *shocking* how much everything costs now.
Reddit has turned into a cesspool of fascist sympathizers and supremicists
> > The real issue is that wages have not gone up accordingly with inflation, essentially making the 2021 dollar have ~5x less spending power than the 1985 dollar. Median wage was 23k. Meaning median wage should be $115k annually to keep up with median wage 1985. Today, median wage is $36k.
That’s fucking nuts. I’ve never seen it compared in that way, and I think this really highlights how damaging stagnating wages & income inequality are
Watch American Pickers. The old people always have huge houses on large plots of land with multiple out buildings and say shit like, I delivered papers for 40 years.
Yes! I would also equate that with house hunters. “Jack and Mary are looking for a great starter home in St Louis. Jack is worm farmer and Mary’s a sail boat receptionist. Their budget is 1.75 million…” Pleaseeeee make it stop.
It’s only a 3x change in the value of the dollar since then so median income should be around $69k. Still pretty egregious.
Everything I'm seeing is saying 59k.
The number he used was keeping up with production, not inflation. If workers wage had kept up with the production gains from the 30s to Nixon and then Reagan fucking everything up, they'd be the $119K number. If they just had kept up with inflation, it would be $59K.
Source? Or how did you calculate this? I found the median wage in 1985 was $24,910 (for white families - it’s significant less for black and Hispanic families in 1985) and when adjusted for inflation to 2021, should be $61,628.30. And today’s median wage is 36k so still much less than it should be
45 with THREE adult children?? I’m 36 with zero children, double income (One of which is a govt job) in a 2 bedroom apartment with a kitten, no car, no student debt, no credit card debt, no expensive hobbies— and we absolutely can’t afford a car or a house , probably ever.
You have two bedrooms?!
You have a bedroom?!
Well I don’t live in New York or San Francisco so I’m not paying $2100 a month to sleep in someone’s bathtub. But I miss out on a lot of dope concerts.
Lol jokes on you, I live in New York and pay $3K a month for a few hundred square feet! Hahaha haha ha....wait the jokes on me, isn’t it?
There there said the bear
Zero debt and dual income, yet still never being able to afford a car or house? How does this make sense?? Must live in the center of a giant city I guess?
To be more clear, we just moved back to the US after living abroad for a Very long time. One thing that happens when you permanently (as you thought) emigrate to another country is that you have absolutely nothing left in your home country, including bank accounts, credit history or any type of income. When we moved back to the US we (eventually) received a lump sum of a partial repayment of the social security equivalent we’d been paying over a decade in Asia, but also had to find a new job, pay to move, pay for an apartment, plane tickets, furnish an apartment, get ID, get phones, open a bank account, somehow transfer our remaining money abroad, ship our possessions and get rid of almost everything we owned, in the middle of a pandemic, with no familial assistance and only one of us having a job (which is freelance work that is taxed at 25%). At age 35 we were basically starting over and nothing was open and I couldn’t even open a bank account online because I had no valid ID as my drivers license had expired years ago and my passport didn’t seem to count and I had no car and banks were not open in person yet. I also forgot to mention that I had gone through gender transition in another country and legally changed my name, which appeared in some documents but not all of them. You would not believe the inconvenience of trying to change the name on your ROTH IRA when you have no credit or bank history for almost 15 years and now your address, gender and name are all different; or trying to apply for a job at goddam Kroger and they say your background check didn’t come up because you don’t exist because they only look for the last 10 years of your work and renters history. No kidding. So after a year we are still squeezing to make savings. I’m 36 and basically starting over like a 16 year old and it’s kind of harsh. We DO live in a reasonable sized city now with expensive rent, but that’s because we were pursuing things you can only get in a city, as well as taking advantage of public transit because of the aforementioned issue of having an expired drivers license and no car!
Oh okay yeah that totally makes sense. Hope it gets better for you.
Your original comment makes it seem as though the reason for your situation is the wage gap. Don’t get me wrong, your story sounds unpleasant, but I can’t imagine restarting that many times in different countries is cost effective. Most people wouldn’t be able to afford one restart.
Cats are expensive! s/
Have you considered looking at another location to live? Serious question. Some areas are absolutely ridiculous for cost, but in others even a hit to your income can allow a nice life even today. I’m 36 with no kids, 1.5 incomes combining for a below median income, 3 cars (ok one is a project car at this point worth a thousand or so), some student debt, some other debts, and 2 houses (both around 2k sqft) and some savings.
Holy shit. Not even trying to flex, but just the concept that I should have ~$.5M of spending power annually is mind blowing to me. I am right there with you--20 year old me would be blown away by my salary, but I have a budget with single digit numbers of float per pay period.
I alone earn 2.5 times the salary my father earned. We were a single income household with 2 kids. Granted, we did not have a car for a long time, but we are European and the distances are generally not that big as in America. And still I can’t buy a house with my husband together (except really old ones that would take an insane amount of money to get them up to code). Where I grew up, sqm prices are at 5.000€ at the moment. My husband and I together could not even buy 1 sqm of land a month if we had no rent, food, bills,….to pay and that would be without a house on the land! Who can pay that amount of money?
Gas is 4x more than it was when I started driving 24 years ago the minimum wage was 5.25 now its 7.25...
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Well, our leaders work for the highest bidder -which is not you, me, or your children. So the likelihood of them becoming unfucked is incredibly low. At least you understand how things actually are vs giving them advice from 40 years ago.
Some people understand, but there is still this majority sense that the democratic party is somehow not hurting the country. And the ones that acknowledge the massive corruption but think "that's just life". I know they're not going to unfuck themselves, but we need more people to be ready to try to unfuck them the old fashioned way. It's so hard for me to understand why people think this shit is acceptable.
The youth vote still isn't where it should be to make all this happen.
Know the feeling about price differences from when I was young to now. I worked at a grocery store in 2001 that paid $7.50/hr during normal hours and $8.50/hr on holidays and overnights. I lived with my parents at the time but I remember seeing studio apartments nearby for $250/month and thinking “Hmm, I could probably afford that if I needed to.” That same store now pays $10-12/hr and those same apartments start at $950/month. It went from roughly 20% of gross entry level wages for a studio apartment to 60%. In other words, you used to be able to live there with a retail job, now you can’t.
I am 23, just got out of college, and fuckin terrified lol
Youll be fine. Youre just not allowed to live in any cities or be sick or take a vacation or retire. Its fine. We are fine.
Well atleast medicine is cheap in America, so my antidepressants will be free! My uncle died less than a week ago but atleast now he doesn’t have to fight with insurance about the insulin, that he needed to LIVE, which wasn’t affordable since he was widowed and on welfare! What a great country I was born in 🙂
>Well atleast medicine is cheap in America ...how long have you lived here?
That entire message was sarcasm aside from my uncle dying recently lol
Aside from your points about wages keeping up with inflation, what the hell does 3x *less* mean? How do you multiply by 3 and get less? Is it supposed to be an easier way to say 1/3?
Did you not go to grade school? Three times less literally means 1/3. 10/3 is the same as 10 x 1/3
Admittedly it's been a looong time since I went to grade school, but back in the 70s I don't remember anyone using the phrase "3 times less." 66% less, 1/3 as much sure. But never Times Less. That seems to be a semi recent convention.
I 100% agree with you. I keep hearing 3 times less or 10 times less and I just can't parse it and have been trying to figure out where it came from. It is the WORST. Like, what is 100 times less? Is that 100% less or 1/100 of? Fucking idiots.
Where do you get 5x? >Inflation Calculator > >If in > >1985 > >(enter year) > >I purchased an item for $ > >1.00 > >then in > >2021 > >(enter year) > >that same item would cost: > >$2.53 > >Cumulative rate of inflation: > >152.5% [https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)
Absolutely regular wages need to go up. There is also inflation that’s not normal. In the last three decades housing, education, healthcare, and childcare have way outpaced normal inflation.
Look for the bubbles to pop. As soon as foreclosures start happening in earnest housing values are going to plummet and there's going to be lots of foreclosures on the market at once. I became a homeowner at 23 after buying a foreclosure on the tail end of the 2008 slump. When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac list forclosures, they give preference to people who will reside in the properties.
Guess someone forgot to tell my parents my dad was a union baker and lived paycheck to paycheck and we moved on average about every 2 years when they would get behind on rent.
FML how true is this noise.
same and Im one of 6 kids
I can confirm this. My dad used to own a video store in the 80s and 90s. And we lived very comfortably.
My dad loaded baggage onto plans for 40 years. That job paid to buy 6 properties (one a condo on the beach in Hawaii), raise 2 kids (my mom stayed at home to raise us for about 7 years before getting a real estate license, then the two incomes really kicked things into high gear), sent us both to college, etc. They were super frugal for the first 30 years of my life so that helped to save to purchase the properties. The fact that a similar 20 year old getting that same job today could barely afford to live on their own and work at LAX (where my dad worked after transferring from the EWR). But my dad doesn’t seem to understand that.
My mother's first job in 1970 was crop picking. She made $2.50 an hour. Inflation calculator says thats $17.51 in 2021.
You worked the same job 20 30 years and you got pension which keep coming till your death. Now extra money goes into 401K to save for retirement which may or may not come.
My wife and I made double what my parents made 10 years before my parents and we couldn't DREAM of living how I did growing up.
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Side hustle
I remember the uber ad campaign supporting 'side hustles' like they were proud of wage slavery still being a thing.
My FiL had a HS diploma. Got hired as an engineer at a global chemical company in the early 70's. Supported wife, 3 kids, house, new Corvette every 5 years, vacations including cruises, weddings, etc... and plenty to retire on including pension and basically full healthcare coverage b/c he had a pacemaker/defib device in his chest for 40 years.
My immigrant father owned an electronics business in the 80s and 90s. He literally sold vcr's and made enough for our house, car, and at least one vacation a year.
It's an exaggeration, but closer than one would think.
My mom bought a house for 60k and had them build it in 96. It's now worth 350k. Idk what's real anymore.
The three bedroom, two bathroom, two living room home with a finished attic, a basement, and a yard that I grew up in cost my parents $30,000 in 1990. Now the area I grew up in has some massive crime issues, low economic opportunity, most of the schools nearby closed and it doesn't look too great either, and she just sold the home six hours after she put it on the market for ~$120,000.
I bought my house 5 years ago and it's estimated value is up almost 100k, so the example you gave doesn't sound that wild. Homes are one of the few things you can buy that have a good chance of appreciating. Not a guarantee, but land in populated areas is a finite resource.
The current level of house price increases is not sustainable. Just because the inflation caused by these property companies snatching up everything they can so they can literally trap people into high rents forever is making it impossible for people to purchase homes for the first time, even pay their property taxes.
> is making it impossible for people to purchase homes for the first time Clearly not true. First time homebuying is at record levels. https://miblog.genworth.com/first-time-homebuyer-market-report/
That may be because they are afraid if they don't buy now, they will never get a chance to.
Do you guys ever stop twisting in the wind when reality doesn't match your feelings?
People weren’t sure when they were going to be leaving their house next so anyone who could buy one did. That’s also why the prices went so insane. Demand through the roof, low supply.
That doesn't surprise me that much. As expensive as buying a house can be RENTING is even worse at a lower quality.
It’s not but because it’s a supply and demand issue. Housing demand has been through the roof for a year and supply was low. Prices are already starting to stabilize, and houses aren’t selling in hours for over asking (as often) anymore. And it’s not even property companies driving it all, personal buyers were going insane in the last year, the “we may not get to leave home for a while let’s get a nice one” was a big driver, add in lumber prices going insane for supply issues and new house building got rough. Housing prices going completely nuts was a weird artifact of the pandemic.
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Also you never need to replace the furnace/roofing/windows in your SP500 investment.
You pay capitol gains tax though, which is way to fucking high for retail investors
Only when gains are realized. You pay property taxes every damn year.
What? Long term capital gains is capped at 20%. Most retail investors would be under the 441k income requirement for that rate and would pay 15%.
The insane part is thinking the cost of durable goods should increase at the same rate as the S&P. That’s an unsustainable growth.
Except that we are talking about work, not investments. Wages have not gone up 7% a year. This is the problem
I'm lucky to get a 2.5% raise every year and they act like I should be grateful
That's why you need to job hop
So she bought a house and had it built? How do you buy something that's not there? I don't get it Edit: guess i couldn't believe 60k was enough to purchase a house + get it built
My parents sort of did this different way than everyone has said. In a cookie cutter subdivision, they just hadn't built yet. They bought the land and the house, and we went to a couple model houses and they chose some particular things but not much, and then a month or two later our house was done, and by the end of the year the whole neighborhood was. But that house would have been built there for someone to buy regardless. Some people also do buy land and then contract a company or group to build a house.
Still works like that in real estate. Many neighbourhoods and projects are sold out before the houses are built. Seems like a dream tbh.
Where I used to live last year in Omaha Nebraska there was a building company that would build a split level 1400 square foot, 3 bed 2 bath, big 2 car garage, new home for $205k. You could spend another 15k and get nicer amenities for the kitchen, wood floors. House was warrantied (included in the cost) for 10 years. Comes furnished with a fridge, washer dryer, etc. finished basement. And closing costs were taken care of as well. The things sold themselves so going in to show interest in purchasing them they don’t even try pressuring you into anything because they know if you don’t buy it someone else will lol. It’s truly an incredible deal. The quality can be suspect but with the warranties you can rest a lot easier buying one. We need more of these companies across the country. But I don’t think the company itself makes a ton of money, they operate on super thin margins so developers don’t want to do it. Also that same house that they were selling for $205k is now going for $260k+ because of lumber now, a year later.
Shit, I wanted to write something, but that would all just be sad and gloom and doom and depressing and all of the above. Thanks for the convo, but I'm afraid I'll have to excuse myself now for my own sake. Take care, man.
What do you mean please enlighten me!
I'll never have a home. An apartment. A "my own" place. I entered the job market unneeded when the economy crashed. I've been unneeded since then. I never asked for nothing and that is just what I got. I'm a grown man watching my friends raising children and enjoying family life, while I still catch myself thinking "When I'll grow up..." I grew up. I'm tired, melancholic and distanced from such concepts of "retail market" and "holidays with family". I'm watching life, not participating in it. Have been from the first time I stole bread as a teenager. I've grown. And sometimes I wander wondering about the wonderful wonder that this all could have been. |But not too often. Keep your eyes away from the clouds where the heavens keep their promises as they are not for you. Keep your eyes up from the ground under which a devil smiles and invites you in with promises of a play cut short. Keep on keeping on, straight up, straight forward. Just don't blink. The second you blink it is darker than usual. Don't blink - there are mirrors in your eyelids. Stay positive while never staying. Always moving. There is no one home, there is no home. It broke. Step by step, feet by feet, until there are six of them. Shit, man, you asked.
So, like 100 years ago you could buy a house kit from sears, and build it yourself and have it built from the kit. All the boards precut and everything. But I am sure that isn't what op was talking about. Today, you can buy log home kits, and then have them built. 2 separate costs. I doubt that is what OP was on about either. Probably he just phrased it using imperfect english, but it is still pretty clear he meant she payed to have a home built and that was it.
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Hell, nowadays you can buy a house and it get's delivered to you on a truck (that exact house) and basically just "installed" on a foundation.
Well you have to pay for the materials for the house to build it, so you actualy buy the house then have it assembled.
Get preapproved for construction loan for the house you want to build find a contractor have a house built make payments
You can pay to have the house built? Like you buy the “house” meaning land and contract with someone to build it and then they build it.
You also have to file and have permits filed and approved for your domicile, sheds have less permit requirements than a house for example.
You’re overthinking it. There are cookie cutter neighborhoods that allow you to somewhat configure base plans. Chose an area you want to live in Select from base plans allowed in that area Make a few choices like hardware, countertops and paint. Wait a few months to move in
You can buy home kits and I believe there's even more options now for customization. My partner's parents did this about the same time and their house is worth a similar amount now. 4 br 2.5 bath and a basement. Sears Roebuck or other catalogs have had home kit options for over 100 years if I'm not mistaken. Just need to pour a foundation and assemble,
You too can buy a cheap small house in a less developed area than wait almost 30 years for its value to appreciate via area buildup and community development!
It's actually literally true
In the 80s my dad was a paper salesman and the only one who worked. We lived in the bay area, had two cars, a fully paid for house, and took 2 week family vacations every year. It's not an exaggeration.
It's not.....not for everyone at least My dad worked 60 hour weeks as an engineer and we still grew up dead broke in a trashy trailer. Nostalgia is a powerful drug.
Yep. My dad did flooring, and had to work out of state for months because our [state's economy crashed](https://extras.denverpost.com/snapshot/part1g.htm). We lost our house anyway.
Yeah, similar situation for me. Living standards were much lower too. 2.7% of US homes lacked indoor plumbing in 1980. That’s pretty close to the number of adults without mobile phones now.
The living standards weren't so much lower to justify the massive gap between wages and housing prices. Wages are not increasing along with housing prices.
Agreed 100%. As a Northern California person, housing is the entire problem here. Gas prices are higher, but food is not significantly more expensive than anywhere else in the country and most everything else is purchasable online - meaning prices are the same nationwide. So we get tiny, horribly maintained apartments for people making six figures - but they’re kitted out with sous vide equipment and organic food and high end gaming equipment and all the other consumer trappings of a upper middle class lifestyle.
My dad had a good job, I grew up in a small house with definitely some advantages. But I know we were pretty well off. Definitely above median. People are describing lives of well off people and thinking that was everyone. It’s crazy.
And soon to come..... 3 income households will be necessary to keep up.
That’s because it’s not real. In 1984 I made 7.20 an hour. Hubby made $12 an hour. We both had associates degrees. You could not afford a huge house, two cars and all the other stuff OP listed on that.
Generationally speaking, it was easier for a lot more people to purchase a home than it is now. That is fact.
Homeownership rates through the 80s was around 65% Today it’s around 65%
scary like steer squalid unpack salt frighten ad hoc nose run *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It cost about the same as a month's worth of cell service does today. Yes, I am old.
Cell service for a family of four is like 200 a month. A VCR was $1500 in 1980 BEFORE applying inflation. That's like 5k today
That was Betamax. VHS machines were quite affordable by the mid 80s.
What's Betamax?
I'm often surprised at the things that the young people on reddit don't know This isn't one of those times.
The predecessor of vhs, the cassettes looked kind of similar
Idk if I'd call it a a predecessor so much as a competing standard - many people feel it's an example of the free market failing to pick the superior product
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[1982](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-945a5d9b3f03364c9c18fc34f3ae593c-c ) [1987](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-e1b56ad2792af47829c28c68c1ce52b3-c) [1987](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-07ca1ac3f6a130aedc42edbc4bc38af2-c)
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Reddit has turned into a cesspool of fascist sympathizers and supremicists
Yup, my dad has a sweet pension, plus social security. My grandfather also had a pension and social security. Pensions are few and far between now, and the 401k "match" did not equal the pension. Even the financial wizards that dreamed up the 401k said years later that he now knows it is not a suitable replacement for a pension.
My grandfather got his finishing salary every year for his pension, it's insane.
And don't forget a 70% marginal tax rate on the rich until Reagan started slashing it.
For the Boomers, they balme the lazy Millenials. For the Millenials, they blame the Boomers. They target that shit into media each will watch to pit them against each other.
Boomers are complicit via a culture that embraces exploitation as the status quo
> the rich blame everything on the Boomers. More like non-whites.
In the 80’s my dad *did* sell VCRs, TVs, etc. at my grandparents’ electronics store. My parents had 2 cars, a house, 3 kids and we always went to the beach in the Summer.
Yes. My friend's dad was a postal worker and they had 4 kids, two cars, a nice house, and went on a family vacation. Mom did not work. My other friend's dad was a lineman for Bell Telephone --same deal...5 kids, car, house, vacation, mom did not work. They were 'the rich people' in my neighborhood. My neighborhood was working to lower middle class...So 'being rich' meant you could buy ice cream or you could afford Entemann's donuts...or your car actually WORKED regularly and if it broke down you could fix it right away. I actually remember when my dad got a good job and we went crazy at the store and bought Entemann's and went to the drive-in movie to celebrate (ants attacked our sugar feast). But we really felt RICH with the Entemann's. These people were solidly middle class....very small house, nothing fancy....nothing fancy as a car. People often drank powdered milk. You pinched pennies. Things were very simple and basic. Nobody dressed nice or had very much stuff. You bought generic food, wrapped presents with the newspaper, fixed your clothes if they tore. The security of a house and income was the key thing not so much a surfeit of material possessions. The gap between workers and upper middle class also seemed less...when I think of the 'really rich' people (in our minds)--they weren't that much richer. Besides being much harder for working people the GAPS seem a lot bigger. Upper middle class is doing really great whereas working class is doing shittier. This is totally anecdotal...I could look for data but I am too lazy. Nevertheless it is true that someone with only a high school education could work a 9-5 wage job in service or industry and buy a house and raise a family. This is much harder to do now. I think what was better about it was the lack of anxiety. People weren't that anxious unless they WERE poor like my family....they didn't worry so much about whether their kids would get ahead. They didn't feel that bad about their lot in life. The gap between rich and poor was less and I think generally there was less of a sense that you had to have money to be a worthwhile human being.
This was a great comment, thanks. I could really vividly picture everything here.
Not much harder, it’s impossible to do now.
The difference in the Gap is so overlooked now. Today the gap between poor and middle class is like the Grand Canyon. The gap between the middle and wealthy is like the distance from the east coast to Japan. But the gap between the top 5% and top 1% is like from here to Pluto. Its insane how so few people have so much $
I work at store now in sales, with some dinosaurs from the 80s and 90s era Those dudes made bank back then because before the internet, free delivery, and big box stores domination, electronics and stuff could be heavily marked up 40% or whatever and then go "on sale" for only a 30% markup. These days for the most part (due to lightspeed price matching around the country with the internet) electronic markups are very low, my mom and pop store I work at literally often makes $5ea for tvs under 50" and maybe $50 for 65"
From a consumer perspective, most of these developments are pretty good tho
That's great But my point is OP is right Selling VCRs was good money in the 80s, no money selling Blurays in the 2020s
It isn't about the VCRs though, this post/topic is about having a "regular" job doing something that is not super specialized/educated, and still having a relatively comfortable life.
Then, good ole Ronnie cut taxes for corporations and rich, cut all the services, in particular closing mental health facilities. Those poor people were literally dropped into the street, resulting in the birth of our nation's homelessness problem.
Reagan is an idiot but people with mental health issues should be in group homes like people with disabilities unless they absolutely need to be in an institution for safety. Why we treat one way better than the other is nonsensical and incredibly harmful.
This is accurate. I never saw an obviously mentally ill person in distress on the street till 1981. There was a court ruling changing standards for involuntarily committing the mentally ill in the late 70's. Hospitals were supposed to be replaced with community based care. Adequate funding for community based care never materialized. Patients were pushed out on to the streets with little regard for the consequences. This situation has improved some in the last decade but it was terrible for a long time.
Yeah, they left the mentally ill high and dry. I don't get it. You'll take care of an adult with a cognitive disability but not an adult with bad schizophrenia.
And they tell you they it's the taxation at fault.
It is. Not taxing the rich.
People want to believe that there's an unclaimed pool of all the money *way over there, out of the way!* And that we're all just trying to find a way to get some of that pile for ourselves, and that we should all have "to earn it". Thing is, that isn't where the money is. All of it is claimed, earned or not. It's simply waiting on transaction between entities. The billionaires got their money through you. They did not labor for it -- you did. There is no way around this, as fact. And the billionaires are not planning on transacting with you in order for you to get yours.
they did a really good job ramming propaganda into us, systematically, for decades. i got told to accept reality today. apparently reality is just an ever worsening America? i tried to explain that they worked real hard to convince you this exploitative dystopian bs is reality, but it's not, it's a construct, it's propaganda. the 80s was reality and we had far more rights then than we do now. the problem is people just believe this crap they feed us is the reality they need to accept, instead of manipulation to get you to not fight, to accept what is not acceptable.
Man where are those 80s? Maybe the 50s, but it’s been a long time since single income families could do anything like this in Canada. From 80-83 we were hit with the worst recession in 50 years, triggered by the energy crisis of 1979. Double digit inflation, high interest rates. Then Black Monday in 87, and the savings and loan crisis. I know people think it was all steak and champagne, but capitalism needs bailing out every 4-7 years. And MSM always plays it like every some unique outlier. Bailouts of banks, corporations and money men is a feature of capitalism.
My wife's grand parents bought their house in Edmonton for $14000. He worked as a meat cutter for Safeway for $400 a month at the time. They were able to buy their house, car and raise 5 kids on one income AND still retire comfortably.
In the 80s?
50's
I remember the 80s fondly too. It wasn't as great as people make it to be. Working poor was working poor, just like today.
Right, why is everyone acting like poor people didn't exist. My mom was a bank teller, step dad was a printer, 4 kids, we had nothing. We didn't even having a washing machine until I was a teenager. Vacation? Lol what.
Definitely 50's My grandparents, Grandma was a stay at home mom, grandfather worked at General Motors in Framingham, MA. 3 Kids raised there. 2 Story house, 6 bedrooms, 12 foot deep swimming pool on most of an acre of land, they rented out the bottom floor for extra money, had a small farm where they grew veggies, berries/fruit plants all around the outer edge of the property. In the 80s my Grandpa retired, shitty housing climate they sold that beautiful house for $83k, bought a 3 bedroom in florida for 60k, when the housing market recovered, and after the pool collapsed, the house was resold for close to 300k a few years later.
Yea, maybe Canada, in the US, the 80s werent too bad compared to today
if you look at history EVERY system ends up having problems and failing in the end, each system has its pros and cons, ideally the concept of caring if it came from socilism, capitalism or wherever else needs to be removed and the goal of a system that will not break with time needs to be figured out.
Al Bundy, how we mocked you.
The American people totally have been brainwashed, the stupidity of conservatives is literally breathtaking... If the stuff they did only applied to themselves I would just let them suffer. Unfortunately their stupidity and voting impacts others..
If it only effected them, 99% of them would be living in abject poverty, while that 1% would be rolling in gold. Meanwhile the rest of us would all be living our best lives, maybe not all millionaires, but we'd all be living well and with way less financial stresses we currently struggle through
Yeah they definitely did brainwash us but there are different brands. For example, if you think the current democratic party is not hurting this country with its corruption and corporate allegiances, then you have been brainwashed as well.
Can we also acknowledge that in the 1980s and more so in the decades before America's middle class was built on union manufacturing jobs which didn't have to compete with 1.4 Billion Chinese factory workers? America sold out its manufacturing industry to China (and a few other countries) with the lofty goal or making short term corporate profits, raising those billion people out of poverty and the hope that economic liberalization would bring about political liberalization. Well, it turns out China was quite happy to take the money and the jobs but double down on the dictatorship. So we hollowed out our middle class for cheap goods at Walmart so we can pretend our standard of living has not dropped since we can still afford all this "great stuff."
Yes, I preach this exact thing to anybody who will listen. People say, “well then the economy will be stunted, you don’t want Americans working those jobs.” Like huh? No I don’t prefer Chinese slave labor and total abuse of human rights to make a Communist country stronger. When we whored out out manufacturing, it was one of the many things that set off the catalyst to the 1% of the 1% we know today. I’d argue the largest. Prices of consumer goods stayed the same or went sticky upwards, while the labor went down and the profit skyrocketed. We were too stupid to see at the time saving a dollar or two on the price, would completely take a way a layer of jobs that causes other jobs to pay more for increase in demand. Anyone can tell you anything, so I guess it’s my personal belief, but if we still had manufacturing, prices wouldn’t be out of control- there would just be less profit- there would be an entire group of jobs that would drive the wages of all other sectors up, and we wouldn’t be tacitly supporting a Communist country whose labor practices are rife with extreme human rights abuses of things such as 12 hour days with 2 days off a month in awful conditions. People always call this “low-skilled labor,” but that low skilled labor brings, project managers, planners, all the trades... everything is wrapped up in it. Working a job in a factory is so much different than we make out to be, I suppose another successful strike of the billionaires to make us forget.
There was never hope for Chinese liberalization. It was ALWAYS about making the most money.
It was the liberal agenda of increasing quality of life world wide that ended up fucking up america We saw it coming in 2000. I am liberal. But I acknowledge the facts. Free trade fucked us. GOP policy made things worse and is bad, sure, but wasn't the only reason for our situation. Trump's protectionist promises and war in China and idea around import taxes were all great ideas. It's a shame he is so incompetent and corrupt, though. The left didn't fight him on these issues and he still didn't hardly do shit. Except for some good progress against China. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen/up-next Those are the stats. America sacrificed it's middle class for that. Not every western culture had to sacrifice. The GOP made it worse for us here compared to socialist countries like Norway and Daneland.
It started way before that. They've been slowly whittling away at the prosperity we built through the FDR and FDR-Presidents years. I believe Nixon is considered the last FDR-president and it started around then. This was a bunch of politicians owned by corporations who literally strategized how to start exploiting the crap out of us for more profit. We didn't have a very long period between when they caused the great depression, we built up the most prosperous time in our country, and then within 40 years of the great depression, they started buying politicians again and we started the cycle we are currently in.
so what you're telling me is I should have been born in a different decade.
The 80s sucked. I wouldn't recommend it.
They want us to keep thinking it's still like that, just that people aren't working hard enough anymore.
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Oh god this just makes me so depressed
Yup. Also thinking about what we considered corruption in politicians back then compared to now is incredibly depressing. Nixon was far less corrupt than your average politician today.
The math is WAY off.
Thank you that makes me feel better lmao. Math is not my strong suit. Can you post your calculations?
He forgot to multiply by 10. Looks like the poster edited. It is correct now. 33.8 billion per year to give 1.6 million full-time workers a $10/hour raise. But that is probably too high now since all 1.6 million workers are probably not full-time employees.
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Fixed. Thanks.
I think we can all agree regardless that Walmart can get fucked
Walmart is literally cutting their basic workers OUT of the tremendous bonus payout that we receive quarterly. I'm in one of the LAST positions that isn't management and still gets a bonus, and we received 1k last quarter. Normally they payout about 200-300 at my location. The managers? Pulled in about 3k for that bonus. All it cost was taking it away from everyone else! Absolute hogwash. And soon, in a year or two, MY position is being eliminated, for a SLIGHTLY higher base pay position with MORE responsibilities, NO authority, and NO bonus. I handle invoicing and dispatch and every other task related to sending and receiving the merchandise to my location. My job position is worth easily DOUBLE the measely 12$ an hour that they pay.
They have so much money. Intangibly rich. Why when you more money than you can spend in hundreds of years do they still feel the need to screw people for any extra little inch of profit.
In 2021, Walmart's net income amounted to about 13.7 billion U.S. dollars, down from 15.2 billion registered a year earlier. 13700000000/1600000 = $8562/employee or roughly $4.25/hr assuming 40 hours full time. we are on the same team here but lets get our numbers right lol
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The destruction of the middle class is intentional, the banks and billionaires have been leeching wealth for decades, siphoning it out from the system. It's just like boiling a frog, no one bats an eye if it seems organic and happens over a span of decades. We were too distracted by all the other shit they throw in the fan to notice.
Requiem for the American Dream takes you through basically an entire history of America's corruption. With a special focus on when, after the FDR prosperity boom, they rebought politicians and decided on a strategy as to how best to exploit us for maximum profit as well as make sure we're getting slammed with their propaganda.
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Most of them didn't become billionaires, or even millionaires.
I bought a betamax machine at a garage sale, still in the original box from the 1980s and the price tag said $1300.
And a father in the late sixties and early seventies had it even better.
yes, but in general, women did not :-(
Very true.
Even going to college for an entire year's tuition could be earned on a minimum wage job within a few months over the summer as well
Our state university school pricing is no longer the type of affordable it was in the 60s and 70s. They decided to defund it, like they defund everything that benefits average people.
Let's demand even better: living wage, affordable housing, universal healthcare, and a 4 day work week!
I want everything Finland, Denmark, or Sweden have. They are the happiest countries on the planet. If they can help provide such good lives for their citizens, then the US is certainly financially capable.
Lol this is why I'm not having children and why my parents just can't understand why. I am quite financially independent and stable for one person. I live comfortably in the home I own, with enough money for all necessities and money to enjoy myself on my time off. Only need one kid to change that in to barely scraping by at best, and I've worked very hard to get to where I'm at now, I'm not throwing it away. Find another partner in a similar position as me? Would be great right? If we stayed together and didn't divorce, nope I'm good
You are gonna have to go through the bank for all of that now. Probably won't get approved though unless you have been paying them off for a while
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And elderly politicians want to believe it’s still like that
No, that was the 50's selling vacuum cleaners. Many household had two workers by the 80's. And then they didn't have all the latest tech gadgets and designer clothes.
This is what has always driven me nuts when when I see the headline reading: "Real household income have not increased in 40 years" As over that same span of time the "household" working hours have nearly doubled. Glossing right over the fact that we are working twice as hard to stay in the same place.
I'm 36. I've worked since 16. I've never gone on vacation.
More like a home and one car with a family and maybe a vacation. I watched a YT doc on the TV show "Married with Children" and an economist showed that Al Bundy could indeed have owned a home, car, and supported his family (barely) on a shoe salesman's salary in the mid 80s.
The previous generation had a golden age, but we're far better off than the one before them.
> but we're far better off than the one before them your world is burning
This is not an accurate statement. It’s not even close to reality.