Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation • Hacker News Board

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#491

Post by PickledHotdog » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

sigmaprimus wrote: post #330

hvidgaard wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good is new tech if you cannot afford to buy a house or a new'ish car for the minimum wage, even if you live frugal and save?

Many people have a misguided belief that home ownership was easy in the 70s, 80s or even the 90s. Yes the prices were lower and maybe the cost/average income ratio was lower but I can attest to the fact that it was no easy feat even back then. Plenty of people lost their homes, renters had far less rights and although when looking at things through averages seems to indicate a better off middle class, the wages of th…

One of the key issues is around deposits for homes.

When prices are lower, so are deposits. When they're consistently increasing for long periods (with low/no wage growth to boot), deposits become impossible to achieve because price growth outstrips the ability to save.

What you end up with is a large class of renters who can clearly service a mortgage (they service their landlords) but cannot save for a deposit.

Was it a walk in the park in the 70s and 80s? No. But it was possible for a great majority of people. These days, without help for a deposit, you're screwed as an "average" worker in a population centre.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#492

Post by BiteCode_dev » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

helpfulmandrill wrote: post #398

passerby1 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are metaverse gonna replace lack of owning a house (and travel) soon? /s

Maybe you could just live in a coffin and jack into a more spacious metaverse simulation of an apartment /s

You just described japan.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#493

Post by toyg » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

sseagull wrote: post #448

Jenk wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is the paradox of tolerance. A truly tolerant society would tolerate intolerance, which makes the society not truly tolerant anymore. So a society would need to be a bit intolerant to stamp out intolerance, making it overall more tolerant.

It is indeed one great famous weakness of democratic systems, the fact that they typically end up incubating anti-democratic systems that replace them. The ones who do not (e.g. UK Parliament) usually manage to survive by negating their democratic nature when it is expedient to do so (i.e. limiting representation with very draconian measures, so that "revolutionaries" are kept out of power).

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#494

Post by PickledHotdog » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

sigmaprimus wrote: post #482

nly wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a nice fantasy, but you need to brush up on Amdahl's law and apply it to saving. Our rent is currently 25% of our joint take home pay. It's contractually tied to inflation and goes up every year. Housing goes to 40-50% if we buy, but half of that will be equity and the other half at least won't be making my landlord, who owns at least a dozen properties, even wealthier. And we're not DINKs by choice. We want kid…

>>>I've also heard this bullshit before from older generations, including my parents. Mark those words my friend...There is truth in them and one day not too long from now that same BS will be coming out of your mouth, I guarantee it! On a side note, put some of your savings into physical precious metals it may very well be the only thing that will allow You to prosper in the next decade.

This reminds me of people from a certain generation who say "You'll be more conservative as you get older!" which happened to them because they accrued wealth and assets and (somewhat naturally) want to protect them.

But when you can't accrue wealth or assets (for all of the reasons other posters have listed above), you probably don't end up becoming more conservative as you get older. Quite the opposite.

You're trying to tell us the rules for a game that no longer exists in the way you played it

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#495

Post by PickledHotdog » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #401

hvidgaard wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good is new tech if you cannot afford to buy a house or a new'ish car for the minimum wage, even if you live frugal and save?

Is it reasonable to expect that a minimum wage earner should be able to afford to buy a house and a newish car? Were minimum wage earners doing that in 1970?

Yes they were

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#496

Post by helpfulmandrill » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

throw1234651234 wrote: post #481

helpfulmandrill wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could just live in a coffin and jack into a more spacious metaverse simulation of an apartment /s

lol, this will actually happen.

An apartment that comes with total surveillance. Like Alexa on steroids. How do we get off this train?

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#497

Post by Jochim » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

skinkestek wrote: post #190

MrPatan wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm reading here is the union kept your initial wages 13% below market

Not unionized[1], but this is something I'd accuse unions of. [1]: because no uninon ever manages to not try to meddle in international politics. Gandalf in LOTR had it right: he did not want power because he knew he would be tempted to try to do a lot of good things.

This sounds like you're arguing workers should leave things to their "betters"...

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#498

Post by PickledHotdog » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

mercy_dude wrote: post #371

dan-robertson wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> How much did an internet connection cost in the 1970s? What about a computer? What about a smartphone? This is the elitist fallacy that somehow having access cheap smartphones and plastics mostly manufactured in China at the back of our working class jobs make your life better while all else indicates life expectancy and quality of life across the board is declining for majority of Americans. Many Americans includi…

Having access to cheap internet just makes it easier to perform all the additional life administration stuff that people in the 70s didn't have to do but we have to do on top of busting our asses for 40 hours a week to pay off someone else's mortgage.

Comparing utility providers to ensure you're not getting absolutely shafted? Made easier by the internet!

Booking flights? Made easier by the internet!

Having to go through your bank statements to ensure you're not being ripped off by a shady fly-by-night operator? Made easier by the internet!

/S

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#499

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #467

kilroy123 wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy relies on people being able to vote for what they think is right; with privacy. We removed senators right to vote for the right things in private in ~1970. After this things have gotten very bad in the US–policy wise. Polarization. Extreme lobbing. Partisanship. Fiscal policies that only favor the rich. See this: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com All of this happened after we changed the rules in Congress where…

Interesting but I don't think that privacy would help since those buying the legislation would know they're not getting what they're paying for and deal with that fact in some other way.

[deleted]

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#500

Post by Veelox » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

sseagull wrote: post #448

Jenk wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is the paradox of tolerance. A truly tolerant society would tolerate intolerance, which makes the society not truly tolerant anymore. So a society would need to be a bit intolerant to stamp out intolerance, making it overall more tolerant.

Forget tolerance I want liberty back. What makes tolerance so good that it should be prioritized over everything else? I want everyone granted certain inalienable rights and then allowed to live how they want as long as they abide by their rights and the rights of others. If people want to use their right to vote, follow the process, and support something that others disagree with, that's liberty in action.