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Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

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Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#431

Post by sigmaprimus »

nly wrote: post #427
sigmaprimus wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>Today many of those people live in 7 figure homes in the middle of prime city centers. Many of those people live in their same homes, the city grew up around them. At risk of making a generalization, too many young people feel they should get to start at the top. People who bought homes in the 70s spent a lifetime accumulating their wealth, many of them have supported two generations of children and are still work…

> too many young people feel they should get to start at the top. I wouldn't call a dual income couple in their mid 30s paying >40% of take-home pay for a 2 bedroom flat "the top", but ok. I guess my parents who started with a 3 bed family home on a single blue-collar income started at the fucking apex.

So what You are saying is You and your partner are Dual Income No Kids or (D.I.N.K.s) and still struggling to get by? Now is the time to make some changes, You probably both have cell phone contracts totaling over $100 USD per month, chances are there is a just as much going out in other digital subscriptions, maybe You even have that stuff that makes your toilet water blue...literally flushing money away.

IDK your situation but have heard the same excuses for a long time. You have the ability to make changes before You get tied down with responsibilities like kids and debt, make the choice to change your lifestyle now before that choice is made for You.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#432

Post by vermilingua »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #416
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the reasons the modern car has more parts and is not mechanically simple is not the boogeyman of regulations (although I suppose it could have caused some things like say seat belt alerts and airbags) but rather feature creep in the automotive industry, and computerization of everything.

Cars are much more reliable now than they were in the 1970s, and they can drive more miles. They have to because services are distributed and it's super expensive and disruptive to sell an owned-residence.

Do you have any sources for that claim? Anecdotally I believe that to be entirely false, but if there are studies you’ve read that back you up I’d love to read them.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#433

Post by avgcorrection »

WalterBright wrote: post #326
Gareth321 wrote: post #250

Real wages have been flat since the 1970s ( https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... ). "Okay, so people's living standards are about the same since 1970?" Not even close. The problem with inflation is that its calculation is fraught with all kinds of selective weighting, bias, and politics. Take a look at the relative differences between the things which have decreased and increased in cost in…

> why are real wages flat? Good question. One answer is the government consumes ever more of the GDP. This is going to negatively impact real wages.

One answer? Or an answer that happened to fit the predetermined conclusion “government’s fault”?

More of the share of productivity has gone to the owners and CEOs compared to the workers over the last 40 years. That’s the fact base that we are working from. Your supposed answer fits like a square in a round hole.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#434

Post by montblanc »

deadbunny wrote: post #421
montblanc wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does having cheap access to internet makes the quality of your life better Whoa that's a bit of a reach no? How about the ability to drive around with GPS? Or stay easily in touch with family living far away? Taking photos of your baby and having it stored on the cloud for free? The ability to learn almost anything for free? I'm not saying it's all great, it isn't, but we can't deny the benefits.

> How about the ability to drive around with GPS? Maps, and the ability to read them. > Or stay easily in touch with family living far away? Phones, you know good old land lines > Taking photos of your baby and having it stored on the cloud for free? Why do I need physical photos stored in the cloud? > The ability to learn almost anything for free? Have ya heard of libraries? Does technology make these more convenien…

> Maps, and the ability to read them.

You basically need another passenger with you otherwise you'll have to do a lot of stops. I'd even say its a bit risky to drive like that.

> Phones, you know good old land lines

So you are saying having a high def video call with my brother living across the world, for free, is just like calling him in the 60s? It used to be crazy expensive to call abroad. And you couldn't see!

> Why do I need physical photos stored in the cloud?

Do you physically develop all your photos? If you do you are an exception to the rule, most people develop maybe 1% of their photos.

> Have ya heard of libraries?

Come on now. Try learning C++ in a library, good luck with that. Also, it's only the rich world that has high quality libraries accessible to everyone.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#435

Post by whoisjohnkid »

dan-robertson wrote: post #276
Gareth321 wrote: post #250

Real wages have been flat since the 1970s ( https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... ). "Okay, so people's living standards are about the same since 1970?" Not even close. The problem with inflation is that its calculation is fraught with all kinds of selective weighting, bias, and politics. Take a look at the relative differences between the things which have decreased and increased in cost in…

> most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment. There are many pitfalls with measuring long-term inflation. How much did an internet connection cost in the 1970s? What about a computer? What about a smartphone? These modern technologies make peoples lives much better and were somewhere between impossible and impossibly…

There’s a lot of pitfalls measuring inflation in general especially when you add tech to the mix.

Technology is known to be deflationary; getting faster and cheaper over time.

This is how some fast food prices have been mostly staying the same; though even here you sometimes see shrinkflation.

It’s unfortunate that there’s so much politics around the inflation numbers, things that are deflationary are deliberately used to reduce the inflation numbers.

If something is too inflationary it either stops being measured or new ways of measuring are introduced that reduces the numbers.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#436

Post by montblanc »

willcipriano wrote: post #430
deadbunny wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about the ability to drive around with GPS? Maps, and the ability to read them. > Or stay easily in touch with family living far away? Phones, you know good old land lines > Taking photos of your baby and having it stored on the cloud for free? Why do I need physical photos stored in the cloud? > The ability to learn almost anything for free? Have ya heard of libraries? Does technology make these more convenien…

I'm fairly convinced that having to do things as you described was better for mental health as well. The always on, always connected lifestyle has big downsides.

Driving with a map was better than how it is now? We're 10 years from having the damn thing drive itself for us. I suck at directions, I can imagine without the internet I would just avoid drives to places I wasn't familiar with and miss out on a bunch of things.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#437

Post by guerrilla »

Jenk wrote: post #422
guerrilla wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people just really want the right to reign Many people do. I see this as a dangerous problem. Weimar Germany also really wanted the right to reign and it didn't turn out well. The party here was founded in part by two literal Nazis and a bunch of skinheads. I don't really care what people want when they want them to rule.

I'm caught in a (philosophical?) dillemna though: I don't want the right to rise to power because I fear for the future of freedom, but I would be repressing freedom by ostracising/excluding the right from electoral eligibility. Is technocracy the answer? Have some kind of determinable objective truth rule? How do we mitigate for failure to identify the objective truth in that case? .. and on continues the shower tho…

I think your comment is insightful but I don't have an answers to any of this. I just wish that stuff was what we were trying to figure out of a society rather than the trash going on these days.

I think you're right that we could definitely be on the eve of something about to happen, especially combining those observations with recent geopolitical updates.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#438

Post by willcipriano »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #52
tjpnz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience HR are never receptive to those types of arguments. If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job.

The best thing you can do is organize your workplace. Job hopping allows businesses to eat the market at the edges and eventually squeeze those demands out of the labor pool.

I've never gotten a raise from organizing my workforce but I've gotten many by hopping jobs. Can you tell me more about the workplaces you've organized? How did you start to go about it?

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#439

Post by lucian1900 »

namdnay wrote: post #296
toyg wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a non-American, it's heartbreaking to see efforts to unify the underclass completely derailed by this ridiculous race war. Yeah, well, it's not like things are much better in Europe. Far-right parties are now mainstream in most major EU countries, and their n.1 priority is exactly the same. Signed, a Brexit victim.

The far-right parties in Europe are usually focused on immigration rather than race. Look at the Brexit parties in the UK, the big enemies were the Poles. And the FN/RN in France has always taken pains to show that it is "pro-black" (and anti-brown..)

Racism isn't the same thing as colourism. Eastern Europeans and Muslims are both groups that get racialised in Western Europe.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#440

Post by prepend »

dan-robertson wrote: post #276
Gareth321 wrote: post #250

Real wages have been flat since the 1970s ( https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... ). "Okay, so people's living standards are about the same since 1970?" Not even close. The problem with inflation is that its calculation is fraught with all kinds of selective weighting, bias, and politics. Take a look at the relative differences between the things which have decreased and increased in cost in…

> most Americans are significantly worse off since the 1970s I think this is obviously false and hurts the credibility of the rest of this comment. There are many pitfalls with measuring long-term inflation. How much did an internet connection cost in the 1970s? What about a computer? What about a smartphone? These modern technologies make peoples lives much better and were somewhere between impossible and impossibly…

It’s also hard to measure environmental factors like air quality is better now than in the 70s (thanks unleaded gas).

The challenge is when specific areas that are worse off (wages) are lumped together with a general negativity (we’re worse off).

I wish there were better metrics, but at least we have tools like CPI. It’s just so tempting to use these data for the wrong analyses and conclusions.

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