My Life Is a Lie: How a Broken Benchmark Broke America • Hacker News Board

Re: My Life Is a Lie: How a Broken Benchmark Broke America

#51

Post by medvezhenok » Tue, Nov 25, 2025, 5:48 PM UTC

The core premise (benchmarks are broken), might be correct, but the poverty benchmark he uses is a bad example. The OPM and SPM (supplemental poverty measure, developed in 2009-2012), disagree by less than 10%; and the latter takes into account many of the criticisms in the article.

The author uses MIT Living Wage numbers to argue that should be the new "poverty" benchmark - an absurd proposition. Those might be reasonable middle class numbers. He also implies that the benchmark historically represented what is now covered under that $140K calculation - also false; it took ~$9000 in 1966 to cover a "basic standard of living" for a family of 4 with 1 earner; inflation adjusted, that's around $90,000 today. If you add in SS/Medicare taxes (3% then, 15% today), that puts you at ~$100K-105K.

Using the same MIT Living Wage numbers and taking Essex-Princeton NJ as the area (roughly what the author used), you end up with $99,922 as the living wage for a single earner, 4 person household - almost exactly the same as the household back in 1966.

Were there more jobs in 1966 that paid $9000/year versus jobs that pay $100K today? That's the real story you're looking for.

Re: My Life Is a Lie: How a Broken Benchmark Broke America

#52

Post by Glyptodon » Wed, Nov 26, 2025, 1:27 AM UTC

smeej wrote: post #44

Glyptodon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're just picking at a detail that doesn't alter the picture much. I think we can all agree that having home Internet and a smart phone matter. Cheap phones cost a few hundred, cheap plans cost $40+/person if you use normal amounts of data, not < 5 gigs, home Internet costs $50+, and renting or buying modem type stuff. Amortizing all that might be under $200, but it's probably damn close (or at least circa…

Cheap phones like a year old Moto G are under $100. There's no reason that shouldn't last two years. They do everything necessary. If you're near poverty, you don't get to use "normal" amounts of data, streaming shows and Spotify and YouTube. You need enough data to get by, and 5GB will easily load every website you must access in a month, never mind that the plan includes all the talk/text you need. I really do pay…

I also use cheap Mint Mobile plan with a 5 gig plan. Most months I don't hit the cap. But the months that I do all have two things in common: either traveling, often with the implicit assumption that I can use my phone for work, or tethering to use for work when there's a power or internet outage. Those primary causes aside, the current online universe does an awful lot of video and I've wasted an awful lot of data watching tutorial videos and how-to type stuff.

That said, the point is that if you can't watch a tutorial because it'd run over your data cap, it's problematic. So is having too trash of a phone - it's the kind of thing employers will see as a negative signal at a certain point.

Which is to say, sure, maybe you can spend under $200/mo on phones and Internet for one or two people, but realistically you're not spending under $100 without major and problematic sacrifices. And whether it's a $100 or $200, compared to housing, food, other stuff, it's not a wild expense.

Re: My Life Is a Lie: How a Broken Benchmark Broke America

#53

Post by Glyptodon » Wed, Nov 26, 2025, 1:44 AM UTC

scuff3d wrote: post #35

Glyptodon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're just picking at a detail that doesn't alter the picture much. I think we can all agree that having home Internet and a smart phone matter. Cheap phones cost a few hundred, cheap plans cost $40+/person if you use normal amounts of data, not < 5 gigs, home Internet costs $50+, and renting or buying modem type stuff. Amortizing all that might be under $200, but it's probably damn close (or at least circa…

Yeah the author makes a classic mistake of over arguing the point (potentially because the article was AI generated). Laser focusing on housing and childcare would have been enough to make the point. Throw healthcare in and it's a solid argument. Get into the weeds on individual expenses and you open yourself up to a lot of nitpicking, which is all over this comment thread He also way overshoots the target. I absolut…

I mean it's worth noting that it seems to be for a family of four. I do feel pretty confident that if you take the poverty line as being a measure of the income below which a household has major systemic risks, saying that it probably should have been something like $80k in 2020, and that if you adjust it, then concluding it being $100k+ doesn't shock me.

It's not rocket science to see that just $2k/mo on housing and $2k/mo for healthcare for four people adds up to $48k, and that means more than $60k pre-tax income is an insufficient total compensation.

Re: My Life Is a Lie: How a Broken Benchmark Broke America

#54

Post by Glyptodon » Wed, Nov 26, 2025, 1:54 AM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #2

Can anyone pass independent judgment on how accurate this is? (I mean, yes, he lays out all his sources and logic. I don't know enough to tell whether he's making an accurate assessment of the situation, or is trying to grind some particular axe.) Because if this is true, it's massive. And it explains so much - starting with why everyone feels the economy is broken.

So if you think that the poverty line should be delineating that income below which a household is subject to major systemic risks and has no clear path to retirement, it does appear that the poverty line as currently defined is wildly inaccurate.

If you rule of thumb just looking at $2k/mo housing and $2k/mo for health insurance for four, it implies that a living wage for such a household is some number well above $60k, and potentially as high as $105k w/ my napkin math. This, IMO, suggests that there is a level of accuracy to the article, even if the $140k it suggests is high.