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1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

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Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#101

Post by jandrewrogers »

topkai22 wrote: post #37

While their is much reasonable debate about what "true" poverty level rates are, this study uses a threshold of $20k/year for a worker. That's significantly higher than the federal rate set by the Census bureau at $14k/year for a single worker with no other household members. A 2 earner household each pulling in $18k a year, or $36k a year, in the cheaper parts of the US is not an easy life, but its also difficult to…

The US is a big place, I think many people situated in tech cities do not appreciate just how inexpensive it is to live in many parts of the country. Cost of living can be surprisingly low in flyover country. I know many people that get on pretty adequately with a family on much less than the median US household income. Definitely not living large but also a reasonable if basic standard of living. Wages are relative to a region.

If $20k/year per worker is "poverty", and to be clear it is a relatively poor wage in the US, it would be interesting to apply the same analysis to European countries. It gets uncomfortably close to the median income in countries that we typically don't view as particularly poor. Americans have anomalously high incomes, even those below the median.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#102

Post by chronofar »

seibelj wrote: post #100
llamataboot wrote: post #75

Some things are already starting to give way pretty loudly, and others are yet to come. You simply cannot maintain a democratic society (for whatever nominal value of democracy you want) with these levels on inequality and non-shared misery. I’m not sure what the next decade holds for the US, but it’s either gonna be some major-scale reinvestment and redistribution or it’s gonna get pretty damn unstable.

The US has the most progressive tax system in the world - far more than Europe. The middle and lower classes pay basically 0 tax, or even get refunds (negative taxes), while the rich pay basically all taxes https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-... The middle and lower classes in Europe pay very high tax rates, but get a lot in return. The left in America is promising European-style safety nets…

Which just goes to show you can't tax your way out of inequality. You need better incentive structures.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#103

Post by _qulr »

donw wrote: post #87
_qulr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consistency in how statistics are measured is important. You can rag on the methods but without consistency it’d be meaningless. Is it meaningless? Isn't it important to get as accurate an assessment as possible of the current situation? Arguably that's even more important than historical comparisons. > The majority of what you term as “hopeless” is seniors that are let go and eventually decide to retire rather tha…

Inconsistent definitions or methods render statistical comparisons meaningless. You need that historical baseline to assess the current situation. To provide an extreme example, as extremes are often useful in illustrating failure cases, it would be trivial to say that the murder rate in the US has dropped by nigh-on 100%. Simply redefine "murder" to mean "persons killed by a woman wearing a blue hat on the third Tue…

> You need that historical baseline to assess the current situation.

But what if the historical baseline has always been misleading, and undercounting a problem?

> Simply redefine "murder" to mean "persons killed by a woman wearing a blue hat on the third Tuesday of February".

This isn't a useful example, because the point of redefining unemployment is to get a more accurate view of it, whereas this redefinition of murder gives a less accurate and completely pointless view of the problem.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#104

Post by batt4good »

SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #86
batt4good wrote: post #74

Regulate universities to reduce what they can charge for education. Federally kill teachers unions that have caused rot in public education. Do NOT forgive student loan debt as more than 50% of the debt is held by "high net worth" [0] individuals and graduate degree seekers [1]. Bailing out student loan debt without regulating what colleges can charge will only make current issues in education worse. Smart people com…

> Smart people command more value than dumb people Completely disagree. This is one of the biggest lies being forced by the higher castes in the US. "Smart" is subjective, "value" is subjective. Let's be honest: this statement only true because a certain class of people want it to be true. I value k-12 education in my world view more than I value derivitaves traders: in my ideal world teaching would be a high-paying…

"smart" in terms of navigating society and understanding where value is. What things are worth learning vs not learning, what kinds of skills are worth taking risks for etc. "smart" in terms of just having a degree and believing that being credentialed = intelligence is completely orthogonal to the point I intended.

A stupid person will fall for get rich quick schemes. A stupid person will believe grinding it out at a job they hate will eventually lead to something better. A stupid person will lack the will to try hard enough to better themselves.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#105

Post by _qulr »

yalogin wrote: post #97

Income and wealth disparity is the biggest problem in the US and it’s not given the attention it deserves. The republicans have no interest in addressing it, in fact they actively make it worse every chance they get. The Democrats want to address it but cannot focus. It’s what is causing these symptoms like trump in the country.

> The Democrats want to address it but cannot focus.

What does that mean? Do they have ADHD?

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#106

Post by II2II »

refurb wrote: post #79
II2II wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is difficult to define "actively searching for work" with a consistent baseline across the decades, but it is not all that difficult to arrive at a definition that is valid for any given point of time. Simply consider the social norms for the era. If it is considered normal to have two income households at any given point of time, then it is legitimate to include an unemployed spouse. Another route, similar to the…

normal to have two income households The country is not monolithic. It could be considered typical, yet you might still have only 70% being two income households. It would be silly to include the other 30% as unemployed.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I suggested a hybrid of seeking employment and household income. It is similar to the one used by the study, except the article seems to use individual income rather than household income. Of course, there are still problems with that approach. For example: a baseline household income makes many assumptions about a decent standard of living, it would also be complicated to calculate due to variations in household size/composition and regional differences in the cost of living.

That being said, "seeking employment" is likely one of the worse indications of unemployment. People may be excluded or impeded from joining the workforce for a variety of reasons and stop seeking employment because of that. It is a rather long list: discrimination (age, disability, gender, race), accommodations for disabilities, access to affordable childcare, criminal record, level of education. While some of those can be addressed, they rarely are addressed in a meaningful manner. In those cases I find it difficult to treat not-seeking employment as a choice.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#107

Post by zeroonetwothree »

qppo wrote: post #56
topkai22 wrote: post #37

While their is much reasonable debate about what "true" poverty level rates are, this study uses a threshold of $20k/year for a worker. That's significantly higher than the federal rate set by the Census bureau at $14k/year for a single worker with no other household members. A 2 earner household each pulling in $18k a year, or $36k a year, in the cheaper parts of the US is not an easy life, but its also difficult to…

It's not difficult to call that poverty at all. It's uncomfortable or upsetting, but not difficult.

I guess it shows how far we’ve come, as that income would have been considered rich in 1900!

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#108

Post by WalterBright »

chronofar wrote: post #102
seibelj wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has the most progressive tax system in the world - far more than Europe. The middle and lower classes pay basically 0 tax, or even get refunds (negative taxes), while the rich pay basically all taxes https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-... The middle and lower classes in Europe pay very high tax rates, but get a lot in return. The left in America is promising European-style safety nets…

Which just goes to show you can't tax your way out of inequality. You need better incentive structures.

What high marginal tax rates do is make upward mobility far more difficult.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#109

Post by refurb »

simongr3dal wrote: post #98
refurb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prior to Covid the unemployment rate was the lowest it’s been in 40+ years and wage growth was 6%+ in 2019. The issues this article highlights are not systemic, they are because of the pandemic.

Wage growth and gdp increases don't really do much for a lot of people if inequality is high. Unemployments statistics also differ heavily on what the specific statistic consider unemployment to be.

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...

6.8% increase in median household income from 2018-2019. Look at the stats, most of that growth went into the lower quintiles.

And no, even if income inequality increases, higher incomes for low wage workers have real, immediate benefits.

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