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All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

theatlantic.com

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Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#141

Post by toyg »

Wildgoose wrote: post #115

Not just America, America is just leading the pack. And from an English perspective I certainly wouldn't eulogise the Unions in the way this article does either. My father (now retired) was a member of the EETPU (Electrician's Union). It was seen as a "right-wing" Union because its constitution banned communists from holding any positions within the Union - but that was because communist activists and their aggressiv…

You have some points right, others are very rose-tinted.

I've been living in England for 16 years (after several long trips over the previous 15); I've seen plenty of people getting smashed in pubs as well as in clubs, never "out of sight" from anyone.

Beer consumption has gone down because of shifting consumer taste (alcopops didn't even exist in your '70s workers' paradise). The smoking ban absolutely did hit traditional pubs, basically turning them into waiter-less restaurants, but to be fair they were already being hit hard by chain consolidation and shifting consumer habits.

Supermarket sales of alcohol have gone up not because of opening times, but because of 1) price and 2) supermarkets getting bigger and less 'local', which means the woman at the till doesn't know you and will likely not stare at you like you're a child molester when you buy three six-packs (as it used to happen with local coops even in the early '90s).

Regarding the impact of immigration on "social housing" -- that's nothing compared to the impact of "right to buy" schemes. Traditional communities were disrupted because families bought out their council houses and flipped them on the market to cash in and move out. They didn't like living in working-class council-build areas, so they moved out and left those areas to the next wave of indigents. In fact, "social housing" is disappearing as a concept, and soon it won't matter who is or is not in a council house, because there won't be any council house left.

The hard truth is that the working class is made of individuals, who make individualistic choices. People like cheap Tescos, nice houses, and not getting lung cancer because they work in a pub. There is no need to romanticize the past.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#142

Post by yummyfajitas »

lmm wrote: post #128
yummyfajitas wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be more sad if her salary went up to $15/hour (~2x), but yours went up to $210/hour (~3x, assuming you started from $70 ~= 10 x $7)? If this would not make you sad, then inequality isn't really the problem.

I suspect I'd be sadder, though certainly there's some ratio at which my happiness at our gain in overall wealth would outweigh my sadness at our increased inequality. Let me suggest one of those data-driven analyses you like: for a set of equal-population regions or some such (ideally not just countries, although that might be the only way data is available), plot a happiness measure against mean wealth (income migh…

Suppose I ran the same analysis, but put "% black people" on the x-axis. Suppose that this gives me a better fit than your proposed analysis. Would you then accept that as a formula for how efficient re-segregation would be?

Or in this case, would you recognize that correlation isn't causation?

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#143

Post by greggman »

johnloeber wrote: post #125
746F7475 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely off-topic, but whenever I see these amounts I feel like either I don't understand how U.S. economy works or I've been living in poverty my whole life. I'm recently graduated B.Sc in compsci and I'm doing software testing and to me 30k/year is plenty. Like I have money to buy all kind of unnecessary stuff for my hobbies. Is 30k/year really low salary in U.S.? Or am I just being under paid? I always though m…

Software testing is not software engineering. Testing generally doesn't pay as well. Be careful: if you're doing an engineer's job, then you deserve an engineer's wage. 30k/year would certainly be very low for a software engineer with a degree. For a software tester, it still appears low. According to glassdoor[0], the median US wage for a software tester is $67k. If you're making $30k, then you're probably being und…

Saw an ad for game programming job in Osaka recently. It paid $9 an hour. Not uncommon in Japan

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#144

Post by michaelt »

746F7475 wrote: post #124
randycupertino wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you. My brother is a restaurant manager in the middle of Kansas making 30k a year. And he is a smart guy who was a MATH MAJOR at a state school! He could come out here and get a job at a startup and make 80k easily. But he won't leave his inlaws family, so he's stuck in Kansas. There is some strain and resentment in our relationship over our income differential, sure... especially when I want to complain that…

Completely off-topic, but whenever I see these amounts I feel like either I don't understand how U.S. economy works or I've been living in poverty my whole life. I'm recently graduated B.Sc in compsci and I'm doing software testing and to me 30k/year is plenty. Like I have money to buy all kind of unnecessary stuff for my hobbies. Is 30k/year really low salary in U.S.? Or am I just being under paid? I always though m…

In a lot of metropolitan areas, a lack of home building means there are eleven people bidding against one another for ten homes. If you give all eleven people an extra $x, they'll all put it into their bids and house prices will rise by $x.

If you think software developers in SV have it bad, imagine how it must be for cleaners and food service workers in the same areas.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#145

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

JanezStupar wrote: post #133
746F7475 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely off-topic, but whenever I see these amounts I feel like either I don't understand how U.S. economy works or I've been living in poverty my whole life. I'm recently graduated B.Sc in compsci and I'm doing software testing and to me 30k/year is plenty. Like I have money to buy all kind of unnecessary stuff for my hobbies. Is 30k/year really low salary in U.S.? Or am I just being under paid? I always though m…

> I'm recently graduated B.Sc in compsci and I'm doing software testing and to me 30k/year is plenty. It really is. However in Silicon Valley cost of living is so expensive that earning 100k/year still makes you relatively not all that better off. Where I live most of senior software engineers make around 30k/year with higher cost of living than in the US (excepting hotspots such as SV/SF/NY/...). People who have spe…

Just because you have a >1,000,000 mortgage debt that sucks up a lot of your salary doesn't make you a millionaire.

Its if you have > 1 mill in liquid assets that you are a millionaire.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#146

Post by pjc50 »

746F7475 wrote: post #124
randycupertino wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you. My brother is a restaurant manager in the middle of Kansas making 30k a year. And he is a smart guy who was a MATH MAJOR at a state school! He could come out here and get a job at a startup and make 80k easily. But he won't leave his inlaws family, so he's stuck in Kansas. There is some strain and resentment in our relationship over our income differential, sure... especially when I want to complain that…

Completely off-topic, but whenever I see these amounts I feel like either I don't understand how U.S. economy works or I've been living in poverty my whole life. I'm recently graduated B.Sc in compsci and I'm doing software testing and to me 30k/year is plenty. Like I have money to buy all kind of unnecessary stuff for my hobbies. Is 30k/year really low salary in U.S.? Or am I just being under paid? I always though m…

Comparing salaries across countries and regions is hard if you compare at exchange rates. It's better to use "purchasing power parity".

To a first approximation, how much house does your $30k income buy/rent you where you live?

(Even within the UK, I went from "choice of buying 2 bed flat or renting a 3 bed one" to "4 bed detached house" at the same salary by moving further away from London).

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#147

Post by lmm »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #142
lmm wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect I'd be sadder, though certainly there's some ratio at which my happiness at our gain in overall wealth would outweigh my sadness at our increased inequality. Let me suggest one of those data-driven analyses you like: for a set of equal-population regions or some such (ideally not just countries, although that might be the only way data is available), plot a happiness measure against mean wealth (income migh…

Suppose I ran the same analysis, but put "% black people" on the x-axis. Suppose that this gives me a better fit than your proposed analysis. Would you then accept that as a formula for how efficient re-segregation would be? Or in this case, would you recognize that correlation isn't causation?

> Suppose I ran the same analysis, but put "% black people" on the x-axis. Suppose that this gives me a better fit than your proposed analysis. Would you then accept that as a formula for how efficient re-segregation would be?

Yes, although surely segregation just moves people around and can't change the average percentage, and so the net effect would always be zero.

> Or in this case, would you recognize that correlation isn't causation?

Do you think the causal factors are different then? I think inequality directly causes unhappiness in and of itself. That matches my subjective experience and the rhetoric I hear from many others.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#148

Post by phaer »

Nutmog wrote: post #136
yummyfajitas wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just agreed that a situation which increases inequality (rich person gaining 3x, poor person 2x) helps the poorer person more . How do you reconcile this with the claim that inequality is the problem?

Isn't inequality just a polite word for jealousy? We're all peasants compared to some possible future generations 100 years in the future with all their cancer cures and Mars holidays.

No, it is not. "Jealousy" is a subjective feeling, "inequality" says something about the bigger economy.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#149

Post by phaer »

Nutmog wrote: post #136
yummyfajitas wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just agreed that a situation which increases inequality (rich person gaining 3x, poor person 2x) helps the poorer person more . How do you reconcile this with the claim that inequality is the problem?

Isn't inequality just a polite word for jealousy? We're all peasants compared to some possible future generations 100 years in the future with all their cancer cures and Mars holidays.

No, it is not. "Jealousy" is a subjective feeling, "inequality" says something about the bigger economy.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#150

Post by arethuza »

sangnoir wrote: post #138
Wildgoose wrote: post #115

Not just America, America is just leading the pack. And from an English perspective I certainly wouldn't eulogise the Unions in the way this article does either. My father (now retired) was a member of the EETPU (Electrician's Union). It was seen as a "right-wing" Union because its constitution banned communists from holding any positions within the Union - but that was because communist activists and their aggressiv…

> The EETPU dealt with the problem, other Unions, the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) did not. It was their aggressive confrontational policies that wrecked worker solidarity in private industry. I'm not English, but from my (lefty, somewhat uninformed) point of view - wasn't it Maggie Thatcher who "wrecked worker solidarity in private industry"? Or at least wasn't the downfall of unions around her time? Aside: I…

Dominic Sandbrook in his history of the 1970s, Seasons in the Sun, makes the point that the "every man for himself" attitude of some of the unions in the 1970s actually had more in common with Thatcherism than the old-school Labour types who gave us the NHS.
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