US Federal Reserve studies indicate that the percentage of US households with no excess income after necessary expenses (as distinct from "ordinary expenses" as a term of art) is on the order of 10-15%. This definition roughly matches most people's intuition of what "living paycheck-to-paycheck" means. That isn't nothing but it implies 85-90% of Americans are not actually living paycheck-to-paycheck.
There is another 25-30% of households that spend all of their income on ordinary expenses beyond necessary expenses. This includes things like car payments on a new BMW or a mortgage on a big house; "ordinary" is determined by expense category, not expense necessity, so a lot of spending on luxury goods is classified as "ordinary". By implication, there is effectively no ceiling to ordinary expenses.
By contrast, the median US household has >$12,000/year in excess income after all ordinary expenses. Technically these households could have expanded their lifestyle to consume that income, but in many cases they are spending it on things that are not classified as "ordinary" and therefore not saving it. The categories of "non-ordinary" expenses (which have a sensible objective criteria) are almost entirely obvious lifestyle flex things, so not particularly controversial.
The implications of these statistics are pretty wild. The median household can easily accumulate a million dollars in inflation-adjusted net worth, not including their house, over a 40 year career. And they can do it without being particularly thrifty, since ordinary expenses covers a lot of luxury spending.
Americans have very high incomes, both in theory and practice, they just would rather spend it than save it.
IMO a major deficiency in this calculation is children. Raising children costs money, and families without enough income may not feel that they can afford to raise children, and they may therefore not have children. This means that their income looks better than it really ought to, and it also reduces the birth rate. And, while the US’s birth rate is not catastrophically low, it is below replacement. This may have some negative long-term consequences for the economy.
Americans are largely solving this problem by not having children, or only trying to have children when it’s financially easy but medically difficult.
Automation may actually be the answer to a declining birth rate, and we might stabilize at a much lower world wide population as a result (say 4 rather than 8 billion). People will complain less about Waymo stealing jobs when there are no uber drivers left, but we really aren’t there yet, we still have a surplus of labor.
(not a reply to seanmcdirmid) I couldn't reply directly to 'ayewo's post, so I reply here:
I'm not sure where you are finding birthrates are climbing elsewhere.
The forecast for most of the planet is birth decline over the next 50 and 100 years. Africa will mainly still contribute to population growth, but a lot of other areas/countries are headed for net decline in population, with the results hitting us in 50 and 100 years. It is not necessarily all bad, if we cope with it in relevant ways - a "solution" that was based on populations steadily forever climbing wouldn't be sustainable anyway, for many reasons.
Unemployment is low, labor force participation is high. We do not currently have an excess of labor, and a good deal of the reason that we had inflation was that there was no pool of waiting labor to soak up money injected into the economy during covid -- so instead that money bid up prices.
We have uber drivers complaining about too many people driving for uber in my area, so I don't think waymo would be welcome. We still have people who are unemployed or underemployed, for whatever reason, and automation pushes have huge resistance (e.g. dock workers in America don't want automation to hit ports like they have in China).
You are never not going to have some people who are unemployed. Don't mistake that for the idea that the economy is demand-constrained. It's clearly not right now, and automation of Uber workers would certainly make someone unhappy, but it would also very clearly lead to economic growth and vastly more people being better off than worse off.
But I’m not so sure about your second sentence. How does a situation where world wide population drops to 4 billion come about?
Even if US birth rates are declining, birth rates are climbing elsewhere so I’m struggling to see how in aggregate, the world population declines to half of what it is today.
What are you referring to by "birth rate"? Are you referring to the general society-wide system of babies being born? Or are you referring to a specific metric relating to how many babies are born?
From definitions I find online, first order vs second order refers to systems. So if you're applying those adjectives to a specific metric, I'm not sure that's correct.
I don't think we can say that people "universally" agree about what metric the term "birth rate" should refer to, because different people in this thread are using the term to refer to different metrics. However, I do think that generally the term "birth rate" refers to the number of babies born per year (or other unit of time), and the term "fertility rate" refers to the number of babies born per woman. Fertility rate is actually somewhat more complicated than that, because it takes into account the different fertility rates for women of different ages, and then sums those together, to simulate how many children a woman would have who passes through all the different ages.
not op but i think the climate catastrophe will curb population extensively. on the one hand by simply killing a lot of people directly (mostly war, famine and displacement), on the other hand by reducing birth rates (i.e. people not wanting to have children when there's not hope for the future).
One interesting thing about birthrates that I think most people haven't really looked at is the data segregated by age groups.
In most countries with falling birthrates (save some exceptions like Japan) a huge part of this decrease is in the 15-25 age group. There is usually also a decline in the 25-29 but there's an increase or the same rates as we've had historically on the 30+ range.
What this mean is basically that we've eradicated teen pregnancy, and that's definitely something desirable in a developed society.
A sustainable population - not increasing just staying the same - requires each and every single female have more than 2 children on average.
Starting in your 30s, especially later 30s makes this extremely difficult. It takes months of perfectly hitting ovulation windows to get pregnant, and then you generally want at least ~9 months between children, so you're looking at ~2 years per child, all while fertility starts to rapidly decline as you head into your 40s.
The long and short is that a sustainable population is going to require the majority to start having children in their 20s. That figure going down has nothing to do with teen pregnancy.
As a peer alluded to, that's going to be for some ideal demographic in their twenties (probably early), hitting ovulation perfectly. Age changes things dramatically:
"Women younger than 30 have about a 20 percent chance of getting pregnant naturally each month. By age 40, the chance of pregnancy is about five percent each month." [1]
Things like IVF do not dramatically change the odds either. They're better of course, but it's far from guaranteed - it's still just a rather expensive roll of the dice.
Then on top of all of this, having children later greatly increases the chances of miscarriage, developmental issues (like Down syndrome) and so on.
Life's brutal here - you're in a race against time, yet the later you start the longer it takes, and the harder it becomes.
N=1 anecdata here, but... My wife and I got pregnant -- both times -- during the first month of trying. We were mid-30s, myself being 3 years older than she is, and my wife was old enough at the time of conception to have had a "geriatric uterus" and our first pregnancy, spontaneous fraternal twins, was considered "high-risk" out of the gate because of her age.
> Things like IVF do not dramatically change the odds either. They're better of course, but it's far from guaranteed - it's still just a rather expensive roll of the dice.
Sadly, literally all of our peers who were trying and having kids in the same demographic as us, +/- a few years, struggled hard and most needed fertility treatments. At least 2-3 of them were never able to conceive, despite the expensive and time-consuming treatments. It's brutal.
I will also add, I have a number of friends who are >= 10 years younger than I am and many of them also struggled with miscarriages in their late 20s while trying to start families.
No, if there is also a decline between the ages of 20-29 then the implication is not that we've eradicated teen pregnancy. It's that people are not having as many kids. When you have kids in your 20s you can have more than if you start in your 30s
Working a minimum wage could buy a starter home "back then". It now can hardly pay rent, and starter homes essentially no longer exist, even if someone wanted one.
the thing is, this is happening across any remotely wealthy or developed country, and in that sense the US is actually the ninth highest birthrate in the OECD and well above the average. The only OECD country with fertility rates above 2 is Israel, and that's mostly because the ultra-Orthodox have really high birth rates.
Most of the significant expenses people describe are optional. It is more rational to match your spending to what you can afford with howevermany kids than it is to match the number of kids you have to an arbitrary lifestyle.
They aren't in 'traditional' households where at least one parent stays at home. Without that daycare/nanny and other costs can become very significant. It's also not just daytime stuff. Babies need to feed every 2-3 hours, including at night, and each feeding session can be quite lengthy. That doesn't synergize so well with getting a full night's rest to go join the rat race the next day.
I think this varies wildly depending on where you live. Where I live (Melbourne), just the cost of suitable housing (a/ near a school, b/ close to most jobs, and c/ with space for 1+ children) is so high that it makes it difficult for a lot of couples to even consider children.
But it wasn't cheap "back then" either. I've spent 1 hour one way riding 2 buses to school (same as my parents to work). We had 62 m^2 (670 sq. ft.) of house for 2 parents + 3 children.
It's just now we suddenly consider that too bad. Back then it was normal, just like everyone else.
I don’t know where you were born and how old you are, but that situation was defiantly not usual when i was a child (born 1983 in Israel). If anything I think I’d need a startup-liquidity-event level windfall to be able to afford housing as spacious as my parents bought in the 80s (housing costs increased way more than wages).
It may have been when my parents were born though (mid 1940s, one in what is now Israel and the other in what was then the Soviet Union).
But your parents didn't live in Israel 2019. Israel 1983 was more like today's Venezuela or Argentina. If you move today to a place comparable to Israel in 1983, you'll be able to afford even more space than your parents.
Not sure why 2019 specifically, it's 2024. I think you also underestimate 1980s Israel - although there was a stock-market crash in 1983, it was not otherwise that poor- maybe more like today's Portugal or Greece than Venezuela.
But anyway my parents were 1983 Israelis, they didn't come with future-Israel purchasing power - so they were able to afford their housing on the income of the time :) Other kids in my class had ± similar housing. Some were poor and had worse housing, but not 5 people in a 62m flat level of poverty- for that to be common you had to go back another couple decades (e.g. my mother's childhood experience in the 40s-50s was more like that, might have been common up to the 60s).
I never had my own room. Up until age of 14 I slept on bunk bed sharing a room with my brother and my parents, so it doesn't always mean a separate room.
Eurostat [0] would have you believe that you want 3 rooms for a family of 2 adults and 1 child. That's fine as an aspirational goal, but I feel that parents with a toddler living in a signle-room flat is good enough, especially for the baby.
This. Every time I hear parents in SF Bay Area complain that kids are too expensive, I ask them what are they spending -- turns out they consider stuff like private school a necessity. The bar of "normal" is raised significantly, that's it.
I do not believe this Federal Reserve study can classify such things. It either has a metric which is so incorrect as to be worthless or a biased human judging a dataset so small as to be worthless.
There are families which cram 3 generations and a dozen people into a few hundred square feet. There are people in Hong Kong living in spaces smaller than most American kitchens. By those metrics are we ALL in excessive lodging?
Is it excessive to be in a 1600 square foot house whose mortgage is lower than rent for a 500 square foot studio because you bought when interest rates were far lower?
The Federal Reserve study classifies non-ordinary expenses with households by comparing against median data for a region. For example, having a massive house means the square footage is significantly above median for the region and classifies it as a non-ordinary expense. As far as I know, it doesn't look at interest rates on individual mortgages because I don't believe they have that data accessible. It is a pretty sophisticated multi-dimensional approach they look at household income levels, regional economic conditions, household composition, rural vs urban, local cost of living, etc. It accounts for whatever the team of economic phds who designed it could think of with the data they have available.
The point is that the Fed isn't classifying those things. "Ordinary" includes all primary mortgages, whether for a modest home or a luxury pad. It includes all personal car payments, whether for a shared Honda or a Maserati.
Question EF3. Suppose that you have an emergency expense that costs $400. Based on your current
financial situation, how would you pay for this expense?
Response Percent
Put it on my credit card and pay it off in full at the next statement 37
Put it on my credit card and pay it off over time 16
With the money currently in my checking/savings account or with cash 45
Using money from a bank loan or line of credit 3
By borrowing from a friend or family member 10
Using a payday loan, deposit advance, or overdraft 2
By selling something 7
I wouldn't be able to pay for the expense right now 13
Hard to interpret this. It either shows that 55% do not have enough money to pay the expense, or that 82% may well have the money but 37% would prefer to pay it off after their next paycheck anyway.
Perhaps because 4 in 10 Americans are bad with money. As jandrewrogers stated, Americans are not good savers. (I believe this is a big contributor to our trade deficit as well.)
> There is another 25-30% of households that spend all of their income on ordinary expenses beyond necessary expenses.
> This includes things like car payments on a new BMW or a mortgage
So you're not accounting at all for how much of your income goes toward e.g. interest on the loan vs. the principal? Isn't that kinda important?
Also, do car loans for cheaper cars somehow not fall in this picture? Why do you portray people as buying new BMWs when all cars in general have gotten so expensive?
If 10-15% of American families live from paycheck to paycheck, it means pretty much everyone knows someone who’s struggling.
Another aspect of these numbers is how much of the ordinary expenses are not luxury items but things like a car (because public transport is terrible), childcare (because people need to work to pay for it and the car that’s needed to shuttle kids around) and some healthcare (because public healthcare is nonexistent).
Americans pay a lot of money for things other developed countries would say is a basic human right.
"If 10-15% of American families live from paycheck to paycheck, it means pretty much everyone knows someone who’s struggling"
Not really. Most social groups are fairly homogeneous. Even those that view themselves as knowing a wide swat of people from all sorts of live are unaware that beyond some superficial diversity they tend to have unconsciously selected for commonality of outlook and context.
I learned this at a young age when due to circumstance I elected to do my back then obligatory military service year before going to university as opposed to all my friends that first finished their studies and then (mostly) opted for the 'conscientious objector' route and spend 24 months in civil service.
Going into the army without a degree you get to spend a lot of time with many people that can't read or write, could not finish high-school, never had opened a book or seen any of the films or heard the music your mates loved. Often violence and making baffling poor health and safety decisions were a very frequent occurrence.
What I'm saying is that unless forced by circumstances beyond your control, your circle of acquaintance is probably less a cross cut of society than you imagine.
That’s a very good point. Some people will know nobody who’s struggling while others will know many. Opening eyes and ears to the suffering of others is a deliberate choice.
The problem that I see is that a million in net worth isn't enough to have a good retirement anymore now that rent is $2-3k a month in most major cities.
This is what I’m trying to figure out. Medicare is kind of an advantage, but your out of pocket medical expenses in Thailand aren’t that bad unless you get cancer or something, then you just relocate back? American basic healthcare prices are just really messed up, so your insurance doesn’t really pay off until something serious happens.
I don't know about Thailand, but in France you can apply to join their healthcare system after 3 months. In the meantime you must have private insurance but it's a fraction of what it is here.
Spain is similar. I don’t understand how they are allowing retirees to just move there, but I have friends doing it. I’m not counting on it being that way when I retire since it sounds to good to be true (so it eventually probably won’t be true).
So the people who built the kind of society and economy where you can't live near your family in retirement - are they good stewards of the country? Astute leaders that we should unquestioningly praise? Because judging by the downvotes here it looks like they convinced the masses of this.
Ah yes, let's burden some third world nation with an entire class of people who produce no value, and raise the costs of housing and goods for everyone around them.
I'm not saying it's not smart, it's just not very savory, and isn't a great solution for the longer term.
Retirees don't earn income, so don't pay income tax. Increased demand for housing raises prices for everyone including natives. And typically, retirees require healthcare services well above the population average.
Retirees absolutely pay income tax. Withdrawing from a traditional IRA/401k generates ordinary income at the current federal tax rate. And any capital gains is taxed (albeit at a lower rate) when sold. It's a fraction of what they likely paid during their career, but it is not nothing.
Depending on the country of retiring, this could have majority tax implications. It's a big reason why people choose to retire in certain states: additional income tax on retirement income is possible, depending on the state.
Even if not zero, retirees' income is much lower than working people on average, and that income is taxed at lower rates. Further, tax paid to the US doesn't help the retirement country.
If they're residing in the other country, they're supposed to be paying income taxes to that country, in addition to taxes to the US. The taxes to the US will probably be canceled out by the tax exemption they can claim for the taxes paid locally though, but they still have to file in the US unless they renounce their US citizenship.
Very few people pay income taxes to a foreign government that they reside in unless they are actively working and collecting a paycheck. A passive income stream such as collecting social security or a pension is very rarely taxed. Even things like collecting rent as a landlord back in the home country or earning interest on a savings account there, are also very rarely taxed.
Then they're cheating on their taxes, and that government should probably look into how that person can afford to stay there with zero income. A lot of countries have tax treaties with the US to cover this sort of thing.
> Retirees don't earn income, so don't pay income tax.
The government can and often does find other ways to tax people.
> Increased demand for housing raises prices for everyone including natives.
While true locally, at a national level immigration is typically small compared to native populations. It is a manageable problem.
> And typically, retirees require healthcare services well above the population average.
In other words, they will be forced to put money into the local economy. They’re paying out of pocket, not on public assistance.
Comparatively wealthy foreigners that spend a lot of money on the local economy is any government’s wet dream. It’s a significant boost to their tax base and soft political power. I plan on retiring in a country like Thailand because as long as you don’t criticize the king, you’ll be treated like one.
Thailand is an amazing country and dollars/euros/pounds go a long way. But there are also a ton of Westerners who either ran out of money (or never had any) who live like leeches and even some who "begpack." Plenty more who just barely get by as a language instructor or such.
I'm not claiming there are no productive or welcome foreign retirees -- there are many. But I was responding to "xenospn"'s comment that they bring in money for free, which is absolutely not universally true.
How can you legally stay in Thailand with no retirement or work visa?
I don't remember the details (I had a work visa and retirement is still 2 decades away at least) but to get a retirement visa (valid for one year) you need proof of sufficient funds and health insurance.
There's a reason most countries offer no such thing as a retirement visa, except certain low income countries where overcharging clueless foreigners is the best way to get ahead in life. It's because old people are a burden on the medical system and a class of people who'll pay 5x the average for housing prices locals out. Whoever is renting out housing is probably living comfortably thousands of kilometers away.
Remittances and tourism are not the topic at hand here. It's the local economic effects of a swath of retirees permanently relocating to a poorer location.
> Why does this topic cause the dunning kruger effect to go into full stream among an ostensibly "intelligent" group of people?
If you're smarter than the policy makers of countries who look at the economic drain of taking in disabled old people and say "nope", then maybe you should be calling up their presidents and demanding to be in charge of their economic policy? You're clearly the smartest one in the world. :)
>certain low income countries where overcharging clueless foreigners is the best way to get ahead in life.
This is basically a snide way of saying that "yes, retiring to a country with low cost of living is often a mutually beneficial transaction, for both the retiree and the country in question"
* As demand for medical services grows, the price goes up, incentivizing more people to get medical training
* As demand for housing grows, build more housing
* Gradually expand issuance of retirement visas, so supply can grow in response to demand
It's not a snide way of saying it. I'm saying it only benefits a small portion of truly poor countries where people have absolutely nothing.
There's a reason countries push retirees out, barring the ones who are incredibly rich, once they develop into a middle economy. It's because a typical retiree making a low six figures or less becomes literal dead weight. Locals can make more money than them while actually doing a job.
Thailand is pushing foreign non-workers out because they're developed to the point that they don't need or want those people. Decades ago, Thailand was incredibly poor. One retiree could splurge a bit of cash and pay the wages of dozens of people. That era is gone. Now it's just people acting like they own the place and driving up prices of property that locals are now competing for.
And yes, they could incentivize more people to become doctors for foreigners. But not everyone wants to grow up to be a servant and literally wiping the bums of an elite class of elderly colonists. Some prefer to work in other fields.
And yes, they could build new houses. Your home country could build new houses too. Retire at home and just build a new house there instead of going to a "cheaper" country. If it's too expensive at home, just get more money and build more.
And no, the won't expand issuance of visas because they need to take care of their own elderly.
>Thailand is pushing foreign non-workers out because they're developed to the point that they don't need or want those people. Decades ago, Thailand was incredibly poor. One retiree could splurge a bit of cash and pay the wages of dozens of people. That era is gone. Now it's just people acting like they own the place and driving up prices of property that locals are now competing for.
Hm, I wonder if letting retirees in was helpful for Thailand in escaping poverty? The retirees didn't seem to ruin the Thai economy, as your 'burden' theory appears to predict.
>And yes, they could incentivize more people to become doctors for foreigners. But not everyone wants to grow up to be a servant and literally wiping the bums of an elite class of elderly colonists. Some prefer to work in other fields.
There's a lot of immigration from the developing world to the developed work for medical careers, e.g. NHS workers in the UK. If your people are immigrating to work in medicine anyway, maybe it's better for them to stay home so you can tax them and collect the revenue?
You're going rather heavy on narrative vibes such as "wiping the bums of an elite class of elderly colonists", and rather light on the agency of people in the developing world to make economic decisions for themselves.
If demand for medical services rises, salaries will also rise. If no one steps in to fill those roles, salaries will rise further, to the point where medical services become expensive. And retirees will go to a different country, where people want to work in medicine. Capitalism works!
SE Asia as a whole has been improving, including countries that never participated in the retiree scheme. Thailand has been relatively stable and hasn't been invaded by foreign powers and is a big hub of manufacturing. It'd be more surprising if they didn't grow these past 20 years.
The snide "hmmmm" doesn't contradict anything I've said. Only incredibly poor countries do it. Whenever they have a functional economy, they drop it. And plenty of countries went directly from poor to rich without taking in retirees. See: Singapore, Korea, China, Taiwan. If anything, countries that take in retirees seem to lag compared to those who don't.
And decisions of government officials taking a cut of money from visa approvals for retirees really doesn't have anything to do with the agency of the people. There's a reason countries get rid of these policies: locals don't like it. No need to continue to assert that forcing yourself on unwilling people is good because their rents go up.
>Whenever they have a functional economy, they drop it.
Based on my research, there are a few countries which tightened their retirement visa requirements, but getting rid of it outright is actually quite uncommon. You talk as though this is a common thing. Can you name 5 countries that outright eliminated their retirement visa program? (Not just "considering it", actually eliminated it)
Why would they tighten it up? It's supposed to be great for the economy. It wouldn't make sense to do that if it's good, would it?
And there's virtually no country that doesn't let people with absolutely massive amounts of money buy their way in. 50 people a year buying top floor apartments in the middle of town in cash affects things far less than 150000 people a year happily paying quadruple what locals would pay to rent a normal apartment.
Oh, it's pretty tough to be in your 20s in the US compared to other times. But we are comparing with other countries, and most have the very same pressures as the US, but with lower salaries.
I look at my home country, Spain, where salaries are far lower than in the US for most jobs, and housing costs are ballooning. People might not have huge student loans and very high healthcare bills, but taxes climb really fast when you go past minimum wage. You have people demonstrating because, in their 30s, they still cannot live independently. Pensioners helping their kids, because they get checks a bit over 2000 a month, which are much better than what the recent college graduates are making. If you compare median salary to median rent, or median condo price, the US is still more affordable.
For all the stresses we have in the US, there are few countries that aren't facing very similar situation.
I think you can study statistics and surveys about this. For example, is the number of people reporting that essentials (rent, food, gas) are unaffordable? Are mortgage defaults rising? Is credit card debt rising? And for all of these, which people are affected?
The "affordability crisis" is mostly that recent college grads can't afford the lifestyle they are accustomed to in the location they desire with a job they want to work at.
As has been stated repeatedly in this topic, the median US household has more disposable income than the median in any other country. That doesn't sound like there is a national crisis to me.
My sampling bias is of college grads living dirt poor, had been, have been, will be. Recent friend was praying her car would not break down because she could hardly afford gas, let alone to do any kind of repairs. Sampling bias is a bitch. Do you have numbers otherwise that it is really just lifestyle outpacing income for college grads? Perhaps the outcomes of college grads are skewed, devil is in the details. The experience of college grads is pretty certainly washed away when looking at medians of much larger populations.
There will be college grads struggling and non grads thriving, but on average a person just out of college is doing at least as well as the general population income wise and can expect their incomes to rise with time.
My bet is that your friend can't really afford a car but is well off enough to try, and instead of taking transit is making a bad budgeting choice. If she ditched the car, fixed her lifestyle so she was using transit or a bicycle or her feet, she would probably be fine. She's just probably signed up for things that are too far apart from each other to do that, and that will be an uncomfortable transition.
> My bet is that your friend can't really afford a car but is well off enough to try
It's an old beat up car with 150k miles that was given to them.
She goes to Western North Carolina University. There are no buses, there are no sidewalks, every road is essentially a divided highway. It's not a lifestyle choice where they are living 50 miles away from where they work. Even then, the car was used to go to Hurricane Helene Relief volunteering, otherwise it's for groceries, and to take them to trail heads to hike.
Even then, I'm speaking to the point that they have NO extra money. The lifestyle of burning $30/month in gas is not the point nor the issue.
> My bet is that your friend can't really afford a car but is well off enough to try
Second reaction - jeez - what a garbage assumption to make. Paraphrasing you: "oh, they must just spend too much to have any money. Bad life choices." Garbage assumption dude, you so missed the mark - you would be ashamed if you knew the person in question here.
Further, they are not the only person I know in that situation - and if it were just due to excess of spending money; I would have not raised it as an example of "my sampling bias".
It's very bad practice to assume and then contradict someone else's lived experience based on that assumption. It's a great way to be wrong, way wrong (and sometimes not even know it). Your bet is bad. I'm sure there are plenty of examples out of the millions of people that we are talking about, where it would be right. In this case, nope - just ignorant and wrong.
Same, but you're only proving the point that our sampling bias is of people being poor when graduating from college. Were you picturing a nice car that is driven around a lot? She was driving from Western NC to volunteer for manual labor in hurricane relief. Otherwise doesn't drive except for groceries and to go to trail heads (which are close by). Like, this is not a pissing match. The person just had no extra money for anything. Just another broke college student.
Lol, no, I had in mind a $250 Citroën 2CV that was falling apart to the extend that a second similar car was bought to cannibalize parts from. Which is what people around me had at the time.
It’s not a pissing match. Not trying to take away from their experience. I just feels it’s weird that US people always say gas and cars are so expensive when relatively, gas is incredibly cheap in the USA (not sure about cars, but given how many there are, they should be cheaper too).
The idea that I get talking to people from other developed countries is that they don't have near the difference in quality of life that America does. College grads have desired locations because life in, for example, the deep South is pretty grim.
It's only grim in comparison. I remember the story of a remote mexican tribe, that lived poorly, but happily as they didn't know they are poor. Once they got connected to civilization, they saw that others have such a nice things like sneaker shoes, and their lives changed, everyone agreed it made them unhappy.
I've traveled the world a lot, including the US South. They are VERY rich out there, but think they are poor, that's it.
one important distinction in the US is that we have a requirement to get insurance for nearly everything (car, house, etc.) and these are some of the fastest ballooning costs; and homeowner insurance in the US is actually not separately included in CPI. https://archive.ph/cvorJ
Because many of the folks here are probably high-earning engineers w/o grounding to the everyday experience. I grew up poor and have many friends who barely scrape by. My friends' anecdotal experience is no different than the anecdotal experience posted by GP about "BMWs" -- BMWs arent that common in real america.
can you clarify where "real america" is? are places like Spartanburg, SC or Tuscaloosa, AL "real america" because you can commonly find BMWs and Mercedes in these areas.
>> can you clarify where "real america" is? are places like Spartanburg, SC or Tuscaloosa, AL "real america" because you can commonly find BMWs and Mercedes in these areas.
Sure, and for all of us driving around and near Atherton or any other wealth enclave even in a normal city, all these cars will seem common. And especially common to engineers with multi-million dollar RSU portfolios who hang around the homes of other engineers with multi-million dollar RSU portfolios. It might even make us think everything is OK.
Half the country earns below the median wage. (yes, its a joke but true)
Tons of people live on fixed incomes like social security. One big medical co-pay destroys your entire budget for the year. My mom got a $2000 balance bill under her medicare provider for cataract removal. If I wasnt her backstop, this would have wiped out a year of savings.
Not everyone is a SWE, in fact most people have normal jobs with normal incomes. Yes, incomes are going up, but only median incomes. Not everyone's income is going up.
Seeing BMWs should not be a handwave that everyone is doing well. We really should have empathy for the troubles a fraction of our neighbors are going thru. In a country with a large enough population, fractions are a huge number of people.
It's not about location, but socioeconomic class. Most people live in bubbles. How many people do you know who earn less than $51k per year? Because it turns out that's the majority of Americans. [1]
Similarly, how many households do you know with combined income of less than $62k? Because that is also the majority.
You're not going to find these people in BMWs or big houses, well not without life destroying debt at least. People being completely aloof of these data (or headlines like this one) are how you get November 5th.
BMWs aren't that common anywhere in the US - if they were, they'd stop being a status symbol.
That said, they're also not uncommon - a quick look at registration data suggests ~8% of cars "on the road" are BMWs, though of course just because a car legally could be on the road doesn't mean it's being driven with any regularity (I had a co-worker years back whose pastime was buying old BMWs and fixing them up; apparently they could be had relatively inexpensively at the time, as servicing was pricey).
Which is why all this pedantry misses the point: there's nothing terribly special about BMW; total cost of ownership is probably higher than domestic brands, but you could just as well pad out your ordinary expenses with a Ford or GM payment; a new Suburban or nicer pickup can soak up just as much excess cash as that X3.
Then again, Real Americans drive increasingly old used cars.
They explicitly don’t import or make entry level BMW and Mercedes in the American market to keep it a status symbol, but you’ll see lots of 1 and 2 series BMWs in Europe and even Asia. In the USA, 3 series is entry level.
I see tons of X1s, A classes, and GLAs in the Bay Area. I think the main reason certain models don’t get imported is because of size preferences. The Yaris (aka the Mazda 2) is no longer sold here but the Mazda 3 still sells.
Relatedly, MB didn’t import the EQC into the US. Yet the GLC is the best-selling Mercedes in America. I just learned that they cancelled the EQC due to disappointing sales and will be introducing an electric GLC to the US.
I guess its relative to what the voters experienced or assumed they experienced before the 4 years vs what they were experiencing in the current election cycle. So if you are used to $3 eggs then a $5 egg would be potentially anxiety inducing. It wouldnt matter if the actual cost of eggs is $1 as the fair price in other countries.
People know they are anxious, afraid, and confused.
It’s easy to point fingers at something (anything, really) and have it stick when the actual cause - including bad health habits, unmet social needs, a constant barrage of BS on the media, and no meaningful plan or hope to actually resolve any of this - seems unapproachable/unresolvable.
Because when inflation got under control, prices didn’t go down. They just stopped going up so fast.
We’re at the tail end of the most significant period of inflation in the US since the 1970’s. While incomes are growing slowly and unemployment is low, the pain of inflation is still being felt.
Until real incomes grow significantly, people are going to feel worse off than before the period of inflation.
> Then why did the median household just decide an election largely based on economic anxiety?
Because the median voter is largely uninformed and irrational.
> Is it because all the fear mongering about $5 eggs (They are $3 at my grocery, btw) was overblown?
It is overblown in that most Americans can comfortably afford essentials and more compared to their peers and most of history. That doesn't mean they aren't any less annoyed about the current economy, which is what drives votes.
>Then why did the median household just decide an election largely based on economic anxiety?
Mosty because of marketing and social medias.
When you are targeted 24h/d by ads on what shit you should buy or subscribe to and you feel you couldn't afford 10% of it while your social medias feed seems to show a lot of people enjoying them, you feel like cost of living is way too high.
>Then why did the median household just decide an election largely based on economic anxiety?
anxiety because their standard of living went down from before the high inflation from the economic so-called stimulus, and election because they trust Trump to grow the economy by removing obstacles to growth. The US economy is more dynamic than the European economy because of less regulation and bureaucracy. As one example, companies are more willing to hire workers for a speculative new project if they don't have to pay extensive wages to lay people off if the project fails. American workers are used to it and are willing to take good jobs when they are offered, and it just makes the economy go faster, "ahead of its rivals".
The American economy keeps on chugging despite critics, but that doesn't mean the critics don't have a point.
Costs of living (read: gas and eggs) are high, many would argue "unaffordable" even though most will still pay up. This means that: No, there is no "affordability crisis" in the literal sense. But there is an "unhappiness crisis", as in people aren't happy about how much money they have to spend. That crisis, the "unhappiness crisis" fueled Trump's upset landslide victory this election.
The Affordability Camel's back isn't broken, yet, but the camel is declaring quite angrily that the point is very close.
I'm not sure gas and eggs is the problem here. When people say cost of living, most of it is just rent or mortgage. To this end, I'm not sure if either party would be willing to do anything, as it primarily benefits the property-owning (older) class, which is the main part of the electorate.
>I'm not sure gas and eggs is the problem here. When people say cost of living, most of it is just rent or mortgage.
Rent/mortgage is just one part of the cost of living[1].
Even if you have a place to stay and sleep, you still need to clothe, bathe, and transport yourself and eat and drink to live. Cost of living is literally what it costs to live.
My point was that people would be just fine if it's only the food and gas going up since nominal wages are also increasing, and you have some degree of choice to eat cheaper things. The part that tends to break it is the increases in housing costs.
I think you completely missed my original point to begin with.
People can still afford cost of living, the American economy just chuggling along despite criticism is proof of that. The question is whether people are happy about spending the money they need to spend, the answer to which is a resounding NO as evidenced by the chief motivator behind Trump's victory.
Cost of living is still affordable (there is no "affordability crisis"), but it's too high for anyone to be happy with (there is an "unhappiness crisis").
Also, the people complained loudly and clearly that price of gas and eggs are their chief concerns. Housing is also expensive, but housing is usually a one-time lump and/or a fixed ongoing expense compared to food and gas which are ongoing small and variable expenses that quickly add up.
> people complained loudly and clearly that price of gas and eggs are their chief concerns
This is probably an artifact of how the media works.
People are concerned about prices but only some people are concerned about housing prices. The people who already own a house like high housing prices. Meanwhile everybody has to eat.
The media tries to maximize viewership so when they run the pricing story they're talking about high food prices (which everybody hates) instead of high housing prices (which only the people paying them hate but the people getting the money like). Which in turn causes people to be more concerned about food prices than housing prices because that's what the media is always talking about, even if the housing prices are what's taking the biggest chunk out of their wallet.
I think it's a pedantic distinction. Affording something always implied some level of comfort: you wouldn't say you can afford the car if you are paying most of your spare income on it, even if you can pay for it technically. Spending 50% of your income on rent may be feasible for many, but to the extent that people are unhappy with it, it is unaffordable.
if eggs = food, it's crazy to me that a single cooked chicken breast at Whole Foods is $17 (yes, I get that whole foods is expensive). Ok fine, a cup of flavored black beans at a Korean supermarket in Koreatown Los Angeles is $8. A similar amount of spiced cuttlefish is $8. A package of 12 gyeongdan is $8. All of these would have been under $4, probably under $3 just 2 years ago.
I think you’re misreading the price on those chicken breasts. At the Whole Foods at 3rd and Fairfax, grilled chicken breast is $16.99/lb [1]—which I believe is the price for any food from the hot bar. A typical chicken breast is 1/3lb to 1/2lb before cooking, so you’re really looking at roughly $5.50 per cooked chicken breast.
Uncooked organic chicken breast is $10/lb [2] at the same store. Non-organic is $7/lb [3]. Since Mary’s air-cools their chicken instead of dunking it in frozen water, you’re not paying for an ounce of ice with each pound of chicken.
>All of these would have been [less than half the price] just 2 years ago.
Here in Toronto, I can't think of a single food item that has done anything nearly that absurd price-wise. Eggs and dry pasta are currently at or approaching double what they were pre-pandemic (i.e. ~5 years) and that's the biggest increase I can think of over that time period. (Milk is up a bit over 50% when there isn't a sale; sugar perhaps 60%; ketchup perhaps 30%.) A lot of these increases noticeably started in 2021.
On the other hand, there are definitely things I can still get (at least sometimes) at the same prices I remember from years ago. And I've been improving my budgeting habits across this period of time, so my actual spend has been remarkably stable.
What you describe in LA is unfathomable. I'm accustomed to being taken aback by how cheap meat apparently is (was) in the US. Has the situation reversed?
My and my friends kids have a) need us to co-sign leases; b) been scammed of thousands of dollars thru fake rental things; c) can't afford a house any time for decades; d) can barely afford health insurance; e) have to borrow money when their used cars need expensive parts replaced.
By modern standards it's huge. Everyone runs data-driven campaigns now, which is to say that they basically ignore all but the swing states, and Trump won all of the swing states.
Which is the same reason that for a Republican a 1.6% popular vote margin is massive. California isn't even close to a swing state so a Republican could flip 2M more votes there over what Trump got in 2016 and still lose the state, even though that by itself would increase their national popular vote margin by more than 2%. Trump got 1.5M more votes in California in 2024 than in 2016 and still lost the state by more than 3M votes. So Republican candidates for President ignore the entire West Coast and the Northeast -- huge population areas -- because losing there by 48 to 52 gains them nothing over losing by 30 to 70.
Democrats do the same thing in Texas and most of the South, but the blue states are bluer than the red states are red, so Republicans come into the median Presidential election with a deficit in the national popular vote and often lose the popular vote even when they win the electoral college, e.g. when Trump won in 2016 he lost the popular vote by more than 2%.
Democrats often fancy the idea of switching from the electoral college to a national popular vote thinking they would win more often, but it would really just change how both parties campaign. Republicans would start campaigning in blue states and vice versa but the safe blue states have more prospective votes for Republicans to flip. And under the existing system, any national popular vote win for a Republican is a landslide.
The better argument that people don't really like Trump that much is that he won so big mainly because the Democrats picked a weak candidate to run against him and they should have had an actual primary and picked someone better.
The criteria that makes a category of life expense "ordinary" (IIRC) is that the majority of households spend income on it, so it includes things like taxes, healthcare, and mobile phones. Typical American life as revealed by actual expenditure patterns, and BLS breaks each category down by income decile.
I can't find precise data on retirement outflows and there are many possible ways to account for it (e.g. is Social Security contribution considered saving for retirement?) but what I can find seems to indicate that the majority of Americans do save for retirement, which would suggest it is an ordinary expense.
The only category of "non-ordinary" that I recall being surprising was eating out at restaurants. I should know better, almost no one ate out at restaurants when and where I grew up, but my perspective has clearly been skewed over time by my own lifestyle.
Any reasonable argument should classify retirement savings as an ordinary expense, since those savings come out of your income stream and become inaccessible until retirement age unless you either pay hefty penalties or qualify for very specific exceptions.
The vast majority of households don’t have significant uncovered medical expenses.
There’s major issues that become rounding errors on these kinds of statistics. ~0.5% of the US population is incarcerated or homeless. It’s a lot of people and a major issue, but the US population is huge.
"But millions of Americans who owe far more than $500 may not benefit — 1 in 4 U.S. adults with health care debt owe more than $5,000, according to a KFF poll conducted for this project; 1 in 8 owe more than $10,000."
And this is likely to be a severe undercount. Given that 1 in 4 Americans can't even afford treatment and so they just go untreated rather than take on the debt.
You’re presumably misreading that, under 1/3 of Americans have any medical debt and of people with medical debt 75% owe less than 5,000$.
Which means under 1/12th of Americans have more than 5,000$ in medical debt and 1/24th owe more than 10k.
That seems like a huge issue, but only 387,721 Americans declared bankruptcy in 2022. The discrepancy is people who get a moderate medical bill often just don’t pay it for years. Until they’re forced to pay, or the statute of limitations runs out and it goes away.
Yes, you're correct. The NPR article does state that it is 1 in 4 adults with debt owe more than 5k.
The article also states:
"Health care debt in the U.S. now affects more than 100 million people, according to a nationwide KFF poll conducted for this project. The toll has been especially high on Black communities: Fifty-six percent of Black adults owe money for a medical or dental bill, compared with 37% of white adults."
The US has a population of ~335 million people. If 100 million people have medical debt, that would be 1 in 3 people. And the census date seems to back that to a point.
The problem with all of these stats are that the definition of debt can change which can swing the number fairly widely. The KFF poll that is referenced by NPR mentions the debt is framed as either actual debt or other forms of debt such as "debt that patients accrue is hidden as credit card balances, loans from family, or payment plans to hospitals and other medical providers." Which means that if this form of debt is the metric that makes sense (I think it does given that the above are all forms of debt), then the percentage of adults
is really not 1 in 4, but 1 in 3, which is even more disturbing.
Taking such an expansive view of debt and things become largely meaningless. You end up defining some billionaires as being in medical debt. Here’s an analysis that ignores debt under 250$ as trivial.
“This analysis shows that 20 million people (nearly 1 in 12 adults) owe medical debt. The SIPP survey suggests people in the United States owe at least $220 billion in medical debt. Approximately 14 million people (6% of adults) in the U.S. owe over $1,000 in medical debt and about 3 million people (1% of adults) owe medical debt of more than $10,000.”
But of course that’s a biased survey. ~88 billion of debt that shows up on people’s credit reports suggesting the actual numbers are likely significantly below that estimate.
Why would we assume that "people across the economy reduce spending" == "people across the economy will have more money"? Don't at least some (I would say many) of the people in the economy make income from this unnecessary spending?
Paycheck to paycheck means what it says on the tin that these households consume as much as they earn. Its unlikely that necessary per the government actually captures all that is truly necessary let alone what folks consider necessary to live a reasonable life much of which is certainly either uncaptured or classified as ordinary.
Redefining pay check to paycheck to a definition literally nobody but yourself uses and then concluding few fit this definition isn't useful.
Practically what probably matters is "how many years do you have to work to take care of your basic needs after you retire, and how does this change if you (a) have medical problems (b) want kids (c) [add your other variants of ordinary life choices people should be able to make]"
Almost certainly, yes. Many people live on far less than that and retirees have their income augmented by a government pension (i.e. Social Security) which is quite generous by global standards. This is all eminently achievable by the average American living an average life with kids and whatnot, many do. Making better than average life choices provides a lot of insurance against bad luck over the long run.
An under-appreciated point that extends far beyond the financial is that Americans have an anomalously high amount of optionality in life.
More than enough. The vast majority retire on less and have comfortable retirements.
Despite the narrative, Social Security pays out quite a lot and isn’t going insolvent any time soon. The average payout ($1,900) is more than double that of Canada ($850).
A retired couple would have almost $4000/month in monthly income.
Add on top a paid off home, Medicare eligibility, and Social Security, most people retire with a few hundred thousand, which is very comfortable in most of the US.
Do you feel an $8k/month private nursing home a luxury?
What I’ve noticed is what Americans consider “bare minimum” is pretty luxurious.
“I’m not even middle class” means buying a single family home in the most expensive coastal cities, multiple international (Mexico and Canada don’t count) per year, a couple SUVs less than 5 years old, lots of toys, plus $5M when they retire at 55.
Of course most people can’t afford that. That’s upper class in the US.
The big problem is transportation. Many retired people can no longer safely drive. That means that if they don't live someplace with solid public transportation then their quality of life drops. Unfortunately, all of the places in America with decent public transportation are expensive.
And before someone chimes in “that’s because of the billionaires throwing off the average!” Look at the median disposable income chart. America is still at the top.
The median American is far wealthier than the median European person, even after accounting for things Americans normally complain about like healthcare, education costs, and retirement contributions.
This results in some crazy stats, like the fact the median Mississippi resident has more disposable income than the average UK resident (and that includes financial hub London). And again, this is AFTER accounting for healthcare, education, etc costs.
The median income on that page is the median disposable household income, divided by the square root of household size. Because American households are large for developed countries, measures like that overestimate the income of the median American relative to the median European.
There is an easy sanity check: Swiss GDP per capita is higher than in the US, both in absolute terms and in PPP terms. Their Gini coefficient is lower, meaning that the income distribution is more equal than in the US. If a comparison shows that the average/median disposable income is substantially higher in the US than in Switzerland, it is measuring something weird.
I think you may have that backwards, if trying to disentangle the individual from the household, a larger household would make the median income per person lower not larger.
Also, I’d imagine Swiss housing costs could easily account for the difference in disposable income.
I’m totally open to the idea the economists at the OECD are dumb and put out bad numbers, but I’d argue GDP per capita (GDP being a flawed measure to begin with due to only including consumption incl. government spending) is a far worse measure of on the ground reality than something that accounts for actual household income and expenses.
Housing costs are paid from disposable income under the OECD definitions.
Larger households lead to larger reported incomes, because the total household income is divided by the square root of household size. If income is $50k/person and household size is 2, the reported income is $71k/person. If household size increases to 3, reported income increases to $87k/person.
On the average, Americans move out of their parents' home in their mid-20s. Swiss people typically do it a couple of years earlier. When people in their 20s live with their parents, it often indicates the lack of affordable housing. But if you combine this with normalizing household incomes by dividing by the square root of household size, higher housing costs lead to higher reported disposable incomes.
International comparisons are difficult, because pretty much every way to do them is wrong in some sense. But in general, it's better to collect data that is consistently wrong in the same way than to try to correct the issues you encounter. If your data is consistently wrong, you can at least make reasonable comparisons between a country today and the same country 10 or 20 years ago.
Subsidized services such as education and healthcare are tricky. You could try to calculate the subsidies based on the actual costs of providing the services, or as the difference between the nominal price and the subsidized price. These can lead to very different amounts, and it's not always possible to use the same approach with every service.
If the degree of subsidies varies between countries, you could try to normalize the situation by either adding the subsidies to disposable incomes or subtracting the costs the individual has to pay. In a country where the services are more expensive to produce (and maybe also less efficient), the former leads to higher and the latter lower disposable incomes relative to other countries.
Retirement contributions are another tricky question. Voluntary savings are often included in disposable income, while mandatory pension contributions often count as taxes. But you can't always tell the difference between voluntary retirement savings and other savings. But if you then count retirement income based on voluntary contributions as disposable income, you have to be careful to avoid counting the same income twice.
> When taxes and mandatory contributions are subtracted from household income, the result is called net or disposable household income
I don’t understand why Americans always have such a fetish about bragging about their disposable income. Once you allocate for payments into the welfare state, the difference becomes a lot smaller.
And that’s not even mentioning the stark difference in quality of life, beyond “quality of life” graphs. Those graphs don’t account for having to wait 25+ minutes for the store to unlock steaks or vitamins from a security case. Or for mass tent camps in cities. Or Mmss drug deaths. Uncertainty of potable water. Access to and education on safe sex, abortion, etc. Walkability of cities.
Whenever I meet Americans traveling Europe, they virtually always rave about how much better life seems over here.
Maybe we bring it up because non-Americans (and low income Americans with a lot of free time, i.e. young people) do nothing but describe America as a hellscape online, and it's hard data that demonstrates the benefit of our economic system instead of just debating about a wildly inaccurate caricature.
You don't probably meet many Americans raving about the quality of life in rural Romania, and they may not be so enthralled with the European lifestyle once they saw their paycheck and the living situation it would provide.
As far as non-walkability goes, just watch the top three videos of the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes: https://youtube.com/@notjustbikes
As far as tent camps / drug streets go, I can post videos from San Francisco, Philadelphia, LA, Oakwood, etc. but you’ll bring up it’s “only a Pacific problem”, despite Californian (together with New England) cities often being brought up as the examples for well done cities that compare well to “European”-style cities.
It just blows my mind that anything below, say, $75 is locked up at all.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen food items locked up in Europe, aside from genuine Parmesan, Iberico or expensive alcohol, and even then not consistently. Usually even the lower priced non-food stuff (think a $50 space heater) isn’t locked up.
Don’t get me wrong, we have smash and dash thieves here too, but usually they go for jewelry stores, fashion stores or Apple / electronic stores.
Thieves go for things that are easy to fence. For a while Tide-brand laundry detergent was famously easy to fence in some cities[1], so places had to lock up Tide.
[edit]
Teenagers who shoplift also go for things that are embarrassing or illegal for them to buy (condoms and alcohol respectively). So those are likely to be locked up as well.
1: My understanding is that drug-dealers &c. would accept payment in Tide and then sell that to organized crime, that would wholesale it to mom+pop corner stores.
That Tide factoid is darkly humorous. The selling it back to stores part makes me think of The Wire, Omar stealing a heroin shipment from Prop Joe and then selling it back to him: https://youtu.be/-q2LWHZ6O_M
In America’s defense, I’ll say that certain things are done much better than Europe.
There’s is certainly a better awareness/acceptance that growth = good. The entrepreneurial spirit also runs much stronger in your culture.
National (well, global) security is taken much more seriously, which I feel like is a facet of American federalization and thus unity. You won’t see a combined (and certainly not unified) European army for at least another few decades, everything thinks their own interests, independence and pride are too important.
I’ve lived my entire life in America (over 40 years) and I’ve never seen any food item “locked up”. I think that would be an indication that you are in a shitty area. Similar to the pictures I’ve seen of Burger King employees working behind bulletproof glass.
You're flaunting your ignorance (or naivety) of America for all to see, though.
Most stores, even in internet-stereotype "hellscapes" like San Francisco, don't lock up bottles of fruit juice among other sundries. Anyone who actually lives here would know that, like me.
>As far as tent camps / drug streets go
Only a problem in the real megalopolises like the cities you just named. The vast majority of cities (and there are countless many in this literally vast country) are generally fine (some level of crime and homelessness will always exist as a matter of nature). Again, anyone living here would know that.
Internet memes are fun, but if you're going to passionately argue about something you would be wise to actually do your homework first.
Yes, in a high crime area. It's article-worthy because it's an anomaly. The only thing locked up in stores in my area is drugs.
> As far as non-walkability goes, just watch the top three videos of the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes: https://youtube.com/@notjustbikes
lol ok, am I supposed to take this as an unbiased source?
> As far as tent camps / drug streets go, I can post videos from San Francisco, Philadelphia, LA, Oakwood, etc. but you’ll bring up it’s “only a Pacific problem”, despite Californian (together with New England) cities often being brought up as the examples for well done cities that compare well to “European”-style cities.
See above. You continue to cherry pick examples that no one is denying exist and pretend they are ubiquitous.
Maybe I should go take some videos of homeless in central London or Paris and claim that's representative of the entire EU?
> You don't probably meet many Americans raving about the quality of life in rural Romania
Actually you probably do, but such raving is about as valuable as residents of NYC raving about the quality of life in upstate New York -- it's a case of stated preferences vs. revealed preferences.
I mean I live in America and I have never experienced a store needing to unlock steaks or vitamins from a security case, seen a mass tent camp, or lived near many drug deaths. Our water is top quality, I took sex ed in high school (back in late 90s/early 2000s), and my wife and I walk or bike almost every day in our neighborhood. We don't live anywhere rich or fancy either, quite the opposite. Just a normal city of around 200,000 people in a lower population state.
Could you name a similar-sized city that has the same qualities as yours?*
I’d love to learn, because I’ve mostly gotten the impression that the smaller an American city is, paradoxically the less walkable/bikable it gets due to lack of public transit, sidewalks, bike lanes etc.
*or your own city, but I understand the hesitation on geolocating yourself
I never said it was walkable per se, in the sense that is commonly used to mean everything you need in life is a few blocks away :) I'm not sure the large appeal with that anyways.
I work from home so no commute, but my wife does drive to work. However the grocery stores are less than a mile away and her work is a 5 minute drive (the nice thing about small cities / towns is that if you have to drive, it usually isn't very far).
That said, we do indeed walk or bike almost every day for exercise and to get outside. Myself I only use the car once or twice a week really when we go to stores or out to eat. But even if I lived in a "walkable" city I'd probably do that anyways because we'd want to try something new.
Hey feel free to stay in Europe, seriously we don’t care what you think of the way we live. If Europe was so awesome my parents would have stayed there, but thankfully they moved here for a more prosperous future for their kids.
You keep making statements from things you've read online about the US, but you've never lived here as far as I can tell. I've lived in Europe, and it's not for me. The difference is I'm not shitting on Europe. In my firsthand experience, some (not all) Europeans have a superiority complex towards the US. To those and you, get over yourselves.
You know, it's possible for both Europe and the US to be really, really nice - to different people. But some people need to feel superior. I have lived in both places, and I prefer the US.
I may be wrong but I don't think it is about "superiority" ... I think Europeans look at how US workers (VAST majority of them) are treated by their employers and go "who in their RIGHT MIND would live like this - regardless of what the 'income/compensation' for that might be. America has an entirely different way of life. I have been "best man" at 5 weddings and have christened 11 kids. I hardly see any of them. Everyone is "busy" running around, work work work, then errands etc etc... in most of Europe this would be unheard of, there is higher value placed on social aspects of life. Hence the myriad of studies and stories and... about general loneliness in America (these studies often include people that are married and have children).
Another personal example - my sister is highly educated, has two PhD and I consider her the smartest person I know. Years ago we were discussing something and I mentioned that one of my dear friends is seeing a psychiatrist. My sister scoffed... And I was taken aback to say the least. How can someone that smart and that educated dismiss someone who is basically a Doctor and spent years educating themselves in this field. After talking through it I realized that if you have robust social life, myriad of friends, different friends to talk to about different things (as well as family) you just might not need a psychiatrist to talk to... Just an entirely different kind of life/existence...
It doesn't matter how many sunny stats people throw around the reality is visible on the ground. Homelessness has soared over the last 10 years and is at record breaking highs. Utility disconnections for non-payment have gone up significantly in the last decade as well. Even clean healthy tap water is unavailable to hundreds of millions of Americans and that's only counting the heavy metals, not PFAS.
People are struggling in ways their parents and grandparents never had to, and they often feel they are unable to obtain the same standard of living. Healthcare spending has gone way up too as prices keep going up at a rate above inflation and more people having been getting sicker.
There's a very real reason for the disconnect between the "soaring economy" and how the majority are feeling about it.
Given that only two hundred million Americans would be more than half, I’d need to see some data that the majority of the US doesn’t have access to clean drinking water.
Are there parts that don’t or even a disturbingly high percentage, I could believe, but the majority of Americans not having clean drinking water is a high claim
>And that’s not even mentioning the stark difference in quality of life, beyond “quality of life” graphs. Those graphs don’t account for having to wait 25+ minutes for the store to unlock steaks or vitamins from a security case. Or for mass tent camps in cities. Or Mmss drug deaths. Uncertainty of potable water. Access to and education on safe sex, abortion, etc. Walkability of cities.
As an American in an unremarkable medium-sized city, this sounds like a caricature based on unrepresentative viral anecdotes.
* I've never had to wait long for something to be unlocked. Most things are not locked. Maybe a bit more stuff is locked up post-BLM.
* I can't recall ever seeing a tent camp in my current city. I can't recall ever seeing more than, say, 10 homeless tents in the same place. Big camps probably exist somewhere, but not where I see them.
* I don't know anyone addicted to drugs, but that probably says more about my social network than anything.
* I've never lived somewhere without potable water. If you offered me $1000 to find you some non-potable tap water, I wouldn't know where to go. Flint maybe? Googling suggests that Flint's water was fixed years ago. EDIT: I did find this map; my guess would be that a violation is not equivalent to the water being 'non-potable': https://hdpulse.nimhd.nih.gov/data-portal/physical/map?age=0...
* Was taught about safe sex as a teen.
* In my 30s, I still have no driver's license (should really get one some time). Walkability is acceptable, could be better depending on the area.
>Whenever I meet Americans traveling Europe, they virtually always rave about how much better life seems over here.
There might be a selection effect, where Americans traveling in Europe tend to be dissatisfied. Europe did not seem notably better when I visited, but my visit was not extensive.
[Upthread commenter edited his comment removing some stuff]
It’s trivial to find complaints on the epidemic of security cases in American stores, and especially the fact that there’s not enough personnel in stores leading to long waiting times.
In a similar vein, are you really going to claim with a straight face that America isn’t extremely car-centric anymore?
> As someone who actually moved there, I can tell you the numbers are also anecdotally felt on the ground if you go outside of wealthy tourist capitals.
Then you should travel more. I got these remarks even in smaller Croatian towns. I live in The Netherlands myself, and I’ve heard similar things said in mid-sized cities in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Gdansk, Poland, Denmark, Sweden Bulgaria, hell even in Italy in a place like Naples.
And if you’re gonna claim that wasn’t small town / countryside enough, do you really think quality of life is going to be higher in a hick town in Mississippi rather than a countryside town in Portugal?
Not to mention the sliver of vacation days Americans have.
> Not to mention the sliver of vacation days Americans have.
You are generalizing here for sure. I get almost 5 weeks vacation, 2 weeks sick, 11 holidays, and occasional personal and administrative leave. These also roll over. The people making 45k at my job get the same leave as the hire paid people.
That's because there's much more that Americans have to pay out of their disposable income, especially college (their own debt or their kids), and medical care.
It's not that great, no, but look at how much people can save in other countries: The idea of saving a million dollars outside of your home in Spain is basically fantasy. Much higher taxes, much lower salaries, and no savings vehicles that allow for strong deferred taxation: The max for the 401k equivalent is 1000 a year! So the vast majority of workers are saving basically nothing that isn't their home, and will rely on social security. Not that they would be happy to save... the wealth tax in large parts of Spain starts after $500k, and you pay yearly. 1 to 2% of wealth starting that early makes retiring early basically impossible: 4% is not a safe withdrawal rate anymore.
So it's not a matter of everyone in the US having it easy, but how hard a road most people have now elsewhere.
$20K/MO sounds exaggerated. A quick Google gives me
Palo Alto was deemed the seventh most expensive location for assisted living in California, according to a new study by Mirador, a platform that helps people research nationwide assisted living locations.
The average yearly cost of assisted living in Palo Alto is $91,177, compared to the state average of $63,927, according to the study.
Don't know why this is grey. You will reach a point where you can't hold down a steady job anymore. Age comes for us all and the "old people" working as Walmart greeters
are younger than you're probably imagining.
Being old is expensive. You don't necessarily realize how many things you do that save money rely on being at least somewhat youthful and able bodied. And 1 million sounds like a lot but that is going to be in 2070 dollars and has to last you between 10 to 40 years.
I think you forget that a lot of those things are heavily discounted for people with senior citizen cards. Healthcare and public transportation get cheaper when you get older. (The bus is free here for people over 60). Even utility bills get cheaper with a seniors card.
I think you have a vision of old people as unhealthy and inactive, I can't think of any DIY that I do now that I would not be able to do well into my 80's.
I think the major thing is that you don't necessarily get to choose what happens to you as you age. My Fil is in his early 60s and can't walk across the room without becoming winded thanks to his heart getting messed up. My mother, also early 60s has through no fault of her own completely shot knees and her standing is limited to walking between places to sit.
Their respective spouses are doing great though so they're legitimately carrying the team.
Ok I understand it's possible to use these terms as if they have meaning to some demographic somewhere, but what is the point of using them without actually referring to the necessary figures to figure out what they actually mean to the rest of us?
Also: fuck me, if americans have a 700/month car payment on average most americans you're likely to interact with on a daily basis will be deep under the poverty line. Like, the actual poverty line of "struggling to survive", not the bullshit metric used to cut people off from welfare.
It’s quite common in the middle class and below in the US to spend every extra dollar you make as your income rises. This means, despite getting promotions or raises, your a savings rate remains zero (or negative).
One primary way to increase spending is a vehicle upgrade.
Most vehicles sold are used vehicles. But if you consider only the new vehicles, the average monthly payment for new vehicles is about $740/mth.
> US Federal Reserve studies indicate that the percentage of US households with no excess income after necessary expenses (as distinct from "ordinary expenses" as a term of art) is on the order of 10-15%. This definition roughly matches most people's intuition of what "living paycheck-to-paycheck" means. That isn't nothing but it implies 85-90% of Americans are not actually living paycheck-to-paycheck.
There is absolutely no way I believe those numbers unless they have defined necessary expenses to be unreasonably narrow.
The good thing about well sourced data across millions of sample points that are prepared by professionals over decades of collection is that one should believe that data over anyone’s uninformed beliefs based on no carefully measured data over even a single person.
That's all well and good, so where's the link to the studies and the studies' parameters? It's not like I'm denying well presented findings. In absence of those, I can hold skepticism about the claims.
My definition of paycheck to paycheck would be that if you lost your source of income you would not be able to afford living (housing, food, healthcare, insurance, etc.) within a certain window of time. The data can be easily manipulated depending on what you consider essential. I would be surprised if findings by the Federal Reserve include healthcare as a necessity or essential. It's easy to say it's not an essential if a family or individual never had it.
Most people are not able to live without a source of income through working. And this _should_ be the norm - most people _should_ be working in their adult lifetime.
It should not be possible to live indefinitely without having to produce output that somebody in society needs (and thus is paying you to do so). The welfare state is to prevent the negative outcomes of someone in destitute, by preventing (or trying to prevent) crime, etc. It isn't there so that one can live free.
It's not a big caveat. How else would you define paycheck to paycheck? I'm talking about days, weeks, or low single digit months. A window of time is not indefinite.
The point of measuring people living from paycheck to paycheck is to measure their ability to have financial security. You are financially unsecure if you cannot pay for essentials for days, weeks, or a month off of savings. Many people in the U.S. are completely unable to save up for more than that. That's literally the point of talking about people living paycheck to paycheck. And usually, people only refer to being able to pay for food and housing. It rarely accounts for saving for retirement, health care, home/renter/car insurance, etc., all things that should be considered essential for living but are typically not in these studies.
There is another 25-30% of households that spend all of their income on ordinary expenses beyond necessary expenses. This includes things like car payments on a new BMW or a mortgage on a big house; "ordinary" is determined by expense category, not expense necessity, so a lot of spending on luxury goods is classified as "ordinary". By implication, there is effectively no ceiling to ordinary expenses.
By contrast, the median US household has >$12,000/year in excess income after all ordinary expenses. Technically these households could have expanded their lifestyle to consume that income, but in many cases they are spending it on things that are not classified as "ordinary" and therefore not saving it. The categories of "non-ordinary" expenses (which have a sensible objective criteria) are almost entirely obvious lifestyle flex things, so not particularly controversial.
The implications of these statistics are pretty wild. The median household can easily accumulate a million dollars in inflation-adjusted net worth, not including their house, over a 40 year career. And they can do it without being particularly thrifty, since ordinary expenses covers a lot of luxury spending.
Americans have very high incomes, both in theory and practice, they just would rather spend it than save it.