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Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#71

Post by jandrewrogers »

panopticon wrote: post #46
jandrewrogers wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has largely been debunked -- the questions asked were not about their access to sufficient funds. For example, the median American household has $1000 per month in disposable income ("beer money") after all typical living expenses. This fact alone should immediately raise questions about the assertion that the majority of households can't afford $500 in one-time cost, emergency or not. The major source for this…

A Bankrate[1] survey found that only 37% of respondents could cover a Given that, I'd say a large percentage of Americans do not have plenty of emergency cash. That's not to say most of America is "one paycheck away from the street" like the parent comment quoted... [1]: https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/survey-how-american...

The 37% makes sense, as that almost perfectly aligns with disposable income data if you assume relatively few people save their disposable income at that percentile (also likely true). Most people I know in that zone would put it on a credit card.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#72

Post by toasterlovin »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #11
toasterlovin wrote: post #3

Humans are social animals. One of the primary drives of most social animals is to get as high up in the status/dominance hierarchy as possible, since this improves an organism's access to mates. Status and dominance are relative to other members of the species and, thus, unrelated to the absolute level of an organism's access to food and other resources.

Humans are also security focused rational animals, and if we can believe that there really is enough for us and no one will take it away, then happiness might be for all. Perhaps UBI will make us all happy

> if we can believe that there really is enough for us

What I am saying is that humans are not wired for the concept of "enough".

We have already had something similar to UBI in the form of fossil fuels and the abundant energy they provide, which have tremendously lowered the cost of the bare essentials in the developed world in the last 100 years. You can go into any super market in the US and buy a days worth of calories for about $3. And then you can go into a Walmart and buy a complete wardrobe for about $200. If you want to get crazy and provide yourself with the utter luxury of gasoline powered personal transportation (not a thing available to any human being until about 100 years ago), you can buy a pretty good car on Craigslist for about $1000.

But rather than use the excess provided by cheap and abundant energy to just chill and enjoy the good times, all I see is people (myself included :P) tripping over themselves to buy nicer clothes, and nicer car, or a house in a nicer neighborhood. So I'm having a hard time seeing how people will act differently with UBI. That said, I think something like UBI will be necessary to keep the masses from revolting against the rich. I just don't see it bringing universal happiness.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#73

Post by JASchilz »

coldtea wrote: post #14

The title is a little out of date. Prosperity has been increasing in the 20th century, but has not increased for a few decades. Sure, crap like gadgets is now cheaper, but buying a house, giving your kids an education, and so on have increased. In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Such a house now would be on the verge of bankruptcy. A…

You make a few substantial points, but any use of the "single income earner" argument is incomplete if it doesn't acknowledge that _women were also working at home_ while their husbands were doing income-earning work.

It's not only income-earning work that counts against prosperity: it's all work. Studies indicate that men and women gained 6-8 hours of leisure from 1965-2003. There are probably caveats and addenda to that, and you make other good points, but please also consider non-income work in your arguments.

Ref: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/55560/1/508634636.pd...

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#74

Post by refurb »

lutorm wrote: post #36
opportune wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI will make us a huge proportion of people serfs unless it is accompanied by wealth transfer. It is at best a temporary (on the order of 100-200 years) solution.

We don't have 200 years experience with the market economy itself, so it seems if UBI is a 200 year solution that's pretty good.

We have far more than 200 years experience with a market economy! What do you think they were doing on the Silk Road?

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#75

Post by michaelmrose »

randomdata wrote: post #49
coldtea wrote: post #14

The title is a little out of date. Prosperity has been increasing in the 20th century, but has not increased for a few decades. Sure, crap like gadgets is now cheaper, but buying a house, giving your kids an education, and so on have increased. In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Such a house now would be on the verge of bankruptcy. A…

> In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Has that really changed? A manufacturing business in my area is currently hiring everyone who shows up to an interview. They pay they are offering isn't wonderful (at least if you concept of money has been warped by the IT industry), but you should expect to make around $40,000 per year to start.…

If we are to compare eras and discover what's different I would suggest we ought to compare broad numbers not anecdotes. Even your example is suspect.

The real median income at present in the US is 31k meaning half make less. 45k puts you at the 59th percentile better than almost 2/3 of people. Clearly not everyone who wants to is earning 45k.

A median earner with a spouse and 2 kids is liable to take home less than 1100 every 2 weeks after taxes but your 45k earner will have more like 1400. They will get 3 paychecks in 2 billing cycles but will have to live on 2 most cycles.

Median rent is almost 900 a month. Health insurance for a family is going to run 500 usd says that their food will be 150 a week 2 crappy cars maybe 400 a month. Utilities at least 200. Communications at least another 100.

We are already at 2700/2800 without including clothing or detergent to wash them.

The real question is where is the person supposed to save the money to move from the apartment to the house in the first place. At 45k you are too well off to qualify for a lot of benefits except in areas that are very expensive to live in, but still too poor to support a household.

Incidentally areas where you can buy a three bedroom house outside of the crime ridden hood tend not to have a huge number of jobs so everyone go and move to Ohio isn't a tenable solution for the present economic situation.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#76

Post by michaelmrose »

randomdata wrote: post #66
torpfactory wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think folks are spending quite a bit more on things they need which used to be much cheaper. Healthcare and higher education come to mind as expenses which have started to eat the average family's budget much more than in the past. The medicine is much better today than in the 50's of course. We ought to include a full picture of required spending in relation to housing costs.

On the other hand, essential costs like food and clothing have dropped substantially over time. In the 40s and 50s food and clothing accounted for approximately 50% of one's disposable income. Now it is closer to 30%. But your comment does raise an interesting question: If I were to hypothetically spend $100,000 for an optional status symbol like a Ferrari or higher education and can no longer afford to own a home du…

People that can't afford housing don't buy Ferraris and they spend money on higher education because that is sold to the entire populace at large as the way to get ahead.

Further good jobs use it to distinguish between those who are worth looking at and those that aren't even where the education isn't truly required to do the job.

Also we really don't want to admit to ourselves that the biggest step up would be to go back in time and drop out of the right uterus.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#77

Post by michaelmrose »

randomdata wrote: post #70
TaupeRanger wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a weird comment. There are a huge number of fields where you simply can't avoid "insisting" on universities. Try being a particle physicist outside a university lab. Try being any kind of medical professional without going to med school. Try being a lawyer with going to law school.

I'd be surprised if those careers represented more than 1% of the workforce combined. Do 100% of parents need to provide money to their adult offspring on the slim chance they decide that they are going to enter into a field that expects a degree but is not lucrative enough to justify paying for said degree by oneself? You've found the outliers, but the vast majority of people will never find themselves in that kind…

Most of the people without any higher education are the ones in the bottom half of the population making less than 31k.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#78

Post by roenxi »

slv77 wrote: post #63
randomdata wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Has that really changed? A manufacturing business in my area is currently hiring everyone who shows up to an interview. They pay they are offering isn't wonderful (at least if you concept of money has been warped by the IT industry), but you should expect to make around $40,000 per year to start.…

Households today spend more on cell phones and communication but also spend less on fine china, dress clothes and food. When you net out all the pluses and minuses households today spend much more on housing, healthcare, daycare, transportation (two cars, for two jobs) and education. When you look closely the two bed, two bath detached home it’s likely in a school district that is underperforming and while the home m…

gp actually answered that with "especially if you want to live like it is the 1940s".

There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is. People just flat-out underestimate how much work it takes to keep the infrastructure of the modern world in place and humming - traditional infrastructure, IT grids, distribution of goods and services (particularly maintaining an enormous fleet of wheeled vehicles).

I know a lot of people who are poorer than I am but spend more, because they just don't clamp down on things like car usage, sending money to their children, pets and ordering a daily coffee. The only thing that will force them to live a simple lifestyle is literally having no money.

Sometimes people maneuver into a position where they have no choice, because they make bad long-term lifestyle choices early on, but so far the evidence is that human demand for stuff and services is infinite. People use their spare hours to gather and consume more.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#79

Post by randomdata »

michaelmrose wrote: post #77
randomdata wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be surprised if those careers represented more than 1% of the workforce combined. Do 100% of parents need to provide money to their adult offspring on the slim chance they decide that they are going to enter into a field that expects a degree but is not lucrative enough to justify paying for said degree by oneself? You've found the outliers, but the vast majority of people will never find themselves in that kind…

Most of the people without any higher education are the ones in the bottom half of the population making less than 31k.

Not to be confused with higher education leading to a higher income. As we have seen, incomes have not risen with increasing rates of attainment. People today are making almost the exact same amount of money (inflation adjusted) as people were 40 years ago, back when having a higher education was quite rare.

It is true that people who are born successful are successful in what they do, be it the workplace or academia, and as more people seek to attain a post-secondary education the share of those on the most successful end of the spectrum with higher education grows, but that's not particularly useful information to those who were not born successful.

If 100% of the population had higher education, 50% of the population would still be making less than $31k. I live in what the OECD calls the most education nation in the world, where well over half of the population have a higher education, and the median income is still almost exactly what you shared here ($33,600 to be precise).

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#80

Post by thunder_clap »

randomdata wrote: post #49
coldtea wrote: post #14

The title is a little out of date. Prosperity has been increasing in the 20th century, but has not increased for a few decades. Sure, crap like gadgets is now cheaper, but buying a house, giving your kids an education, and so on have increased. In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Such a house now would be on the verge of bankruptcy. A…

> In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Has that really changed? A manufacturing business in my area is currently hiring everyone who shows up to an interview. They pay they are offering isn't wonderful (at least if you concept of money has been warped by the IT industry), but you should expect to make around $40,000 per year to start.…

Living in Sydney Australia spending three times my income or less would be impossible. Didn't think it would be possible within decent travel of any city hub.
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