How much Americans make in wages • Hacker News Board

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#31

Post by walrus01 » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:27 AM UTC

natalyarostova wrote: post #27

walrus01 wrote: post #15

The greatest trick the 1% in America has ever accomplished is convincing people who make $30/hour that scary foreigners and people who want to raise their minimum wage to above-poverty levels are a threat to their way of life.

The 1% aren't some clandestine group who trick people. Reality is just a highly complex set of different distributions of people interacting with each other, economic structure, government, and culture. Treat and solve it as a systems issue. Attributing maligned motives to small discretized sets of people doesn't solve problems.

I do not literally mean that there is an organized shadowy cabal of people wearing monocles sitting in smoke filled rooms scheming about ways to oppress low wage workers.

However, thanks to court decisions like Citizens United, the sheer amount of money in lobbying, and revolving doors between government decision-making jobs and industry executive positions, wealthy business owners have never been in a better position to propagandize.

Look at Sinclair's ownership of television stations for instance.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#32

Post by jurassic » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:28 AM UTC

I feel this a lot in my own family. I’m in tech at a fairly privileged BigCo. Siblings work retail gigs for a small fraction of what I bring home. I’ve had raises and bonuses equal to what one of my siblings makes in a year.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#33

Post by jungletime » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:29 AM UTC

Anyone know the software package used to create this graph? Was it photoshop :)

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#34

Post by mirimir » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:31 AM UTC

It is a sad situation. But the article doesn't support the title. Because I only see one time point. And "vanishing" requires comparison.

A few decades ago, at what was arguably the peak of the US middle class, relatively few adult married women worked outside the home. But of course, they did work. It's just that they didn't get paid.

Or rather, they got paid through sharing their husbands' income. What's happened since is that both partners often work, but aggregate inflation-adjusted income (aka household income) has stagnated. Maybe even declined.

Anyway, the point is that, a few decades ago, maybe 30%-40% of workers earned nothing. So to get meaningful results, you need to look at aggregate household income over time. Including both partners, and children. And you also need to net out childcare expenses.

Also, I note that TFA relies on W2 data. So what about consultants, whose income is reported on 1099s? But maybe they're a minor factor, and can be ignored.

And finally, it's my impression that executive incomes are typically capped at a $million or so. With the rest paid as stock options and such.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#35

Post by shard972 » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:32 AM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #15

The greatest trick the 1% in America has ever accomplished is convincing people who make $30/hour that scary foreigners and people who want to raise their minimum wage to above-poverty levels are a threat to their way of life.

Uh what? The 1% are in favour of immigration as it increases the supply of labor which leads to a drop in the equilibrium price for labor.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#36

Post by mc32 » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:34 AM UTC

Yet many talking heads insist that cheap (under the table) labor from undocumented workers has negligible effect on earnings of poorly educated Americans (rural or inner city). They still think abandoning TPP was bad, that playing tough with China is bad.

Dems used to protect the working class till the 80s, they used to be anti-globalists (till Clinton) then they got the fever for corporate money and sold them down the river and only half heartedly pay lip service to them. The only one left caring is Bernie, but he’s too far left for traditional labor.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#37

Post by kough » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:34 AM UTC

jurassic wrote: post #32

I feel this a lot in my own family. I’m in tech at a fairly privileged BigCo. Siblings work retail gigs for a small fraction of what I bring home. I’ve had raises and bonuses equal to what one of my siblings makes in a year.

Out of curiosity, do you subsidize your siblings? I'm going to be in the same situation and I'm not sure what I'm going to end up doing but I think I'm going to end up doing it.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#38

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:35 AM UTC

lorax wrote: post #9

> 48% of wager earners had net compensation less than or equal to the median wage I'm surprised. I expected that 50% of wage earners would make less or equal to the median wage. If for no other reason than the definition of median.

[deleted]

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#39

Post by dzonga » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:35 AM UTC

but hey capitalism, is the greatest invention since we discovered we could wipe our behinds. Problem, with America is there's a lot of embarrassed 'to-be' millionaires. Once everyone accept it's okay to be average and life a average lifestyle safe-guarded by the a social net, a lot of people will be lifted from poverty.

Re: How much Americans make in wages

#40

Post by anoncoward111 » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 3:38 AM UTC

mac01021 wrote: post #23

anoncoward111 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately most of the population lives in a select few metro areas where, due to the price of rent, greatly reduces the power of 60k in joint income, married or not :(

Most?

I mean, do you want a specific number? Because if you go to the Wikipedia page for "List of US Metropolitan Statistical Areas", you'll see the following

Amarillo TX population: 265,000

NY, LA, CHI, DAL, HOU, DC, MIA: 70,000,000