In the 50s an entry-level job that a high-school graduate could get would support a family, buy a home and a couple of cars, and pay out a retirement.
While I agree with the general thrust that more needs to be done for the average worker, your comparison of these times completely falls on its face if you speak to anyone with firsthand experience. It shouldn’t be used because it is just noise, not relevant to the world we live in.
My dad grew up in the 50s and lives with me, due to his age/health. Here’s a mix of his take and current data:
Homes have tripled in size on average. Providing for a family involves machines that take on 16 hours per day of household chores (and this number is set to increase further), which are expensive and taken for granted. Electricity and television, to say nothing of the internet, are taken for granted. Cellular phones are taken for granted.
6 children would live in a 3 bedroom house - I know this because this is how my uncles grew up in the 50s, and my grandfather wasn’t just some regular guy, he was top salesman in his compamy. The vast majority of people did not have a “couple of cars.” They had one car and the entire family packed into it without seatbelts.
You can absolutely live like it’s the 50s right now. Cancel your cable, internet, and phone. Do not own a dishwasher, wash your laundry by hand, and only bulk-buy groceries in the forms of cereal grains, meat, eggs, and vegetables. Buy nothing pre-made. Mend your own clothes. Cook everything from scratch. Don’t have air conditioning.
If this sounds like a poor, miserable existence, it’s because almost everyone lives a standard of living unimaginable in the 50s except in science fiction, and that standard is expensive.
That’s why we should help people - because our standard of living rose and we no longer see the 50s as acceptable, not because tradwives and nuclear families made the world safe for one white guy to provide for his family. We are the richest country in the world and our standard of living should be a cudgel we wield in soft-power diplomacy.
As my dad said when I read him this post: “this going back to the past shit is about the stupidest shit in the world.”
Sorry but I do all of that and it’s not any better at all. No washer/dryer, no washing machine, I live in a fucking garage and pay more rent than anyone in the 50s paid mortgage.
Houses that are glorified sheds in flood zones in the worst parts of town go for 300k+. I’m not even entry level and I can’t afford the cheapest garbage excuse for a house out here without becoming house poor. I can’t even “move where it’s cheaper” because WFH people did and now it’s not cheaper. The areas that are truly cheap, are so because there’s no work to be had around them. Can’t appreciate the low cost of an area when your unemployed.
I absolutely agree. I think the “smaller houses” bit just sent me off on a rant because I keep hearing that argument as a way to dismiss current housing price issues, but it’s just not the reality I see when I look at glorified sheds selling for 300k.
Well there’s also a dramatic under-supply of housing as well.
A tripling in housing cost resulting in average houses costing $80k or so, which would approximately align with price increase/sqft would be much more tenable for people.
Still, it’s a higher standard of living and more expensive though, and should be taken into account when looking to provide the right economic conditions for people. That’s why I brought that up.
Bottom line is, as always, fuck NIMBYism and build more. Big houses, small houses, multi-family housing, all of it.
You can absolutely live like it’s the 50s right now.
No, you can’t . You can’t send your kids to a state college or university today and expect them to work their way through on part-time minimum wage and graduate without debt. Pensions are a thing of the past. Unions have been decimated and their protections have been unavailable to most workers for decades now. Today, banks are regulated by private trade associations made up of- you guessed it- banks. Today, employers buy back their own shares (which was made illegal in the 1930s and brought back in 1982) at labor’s expense. Today’s median wage buys you less than minimum wage did then.
My post above was not a call to go back to the 50s, (fuuuuuck that) it was a call to recognize that the buying power available to labor has been squeezed so hard that the middle class as a demographic is shrinking and that in turn probably causes people to lose faith in democracy. When both major parties have worked together to dismantle labor protections and to deregulate finance, is your democracy really working for you, or for corporate power?
Yes, today it’s normal to buy things that didn’t exist then, and most fatal childhood diseases have been all but wiped out, and bigger houses and a housing inventory shortage is a thing, but that’s not the whole picture by a long shot. Raw material inputs (like lumber, and basic foodstuffs) cost more in normalized labor purchasing power terms and that’s probably largely because of corporate mergers in the supply chain and wage standards have not kept up with basic costs.
I think it’s remarkably silly that so many Americans that long for the 50s to come back think they’re gone because the Democrats embraced civil rights or because of feminism and not because they joined the GOP in dismantling the New Deal.
That’s why college is more expensive now. It used to be something you paid for to go, and now there are loans. This drove up demand and changed the financial incentive structure. It’s the #1 reason why I believe college should be free for the lower three quintiles.
Pensions are a crap idea and always were. Today my wife and I are straight up cashing in her pension because it’s worth more in an IRA.
Share buybacks are good for companies, workers, and the market in general - which protects 401(k)s as well. Not sure why that’s an issue for you?
Unions are expanding again and I hope that really takes off.
I definitely do not see how the New Deal was “dismantled” or that the Democrat party of today had anything to do with it. The New Deals/Great Society were a defining time for conservatives and many conservative Democrats left the party over it.
Back then, states funded their colleges- tuition wasn’t the primary funding mechanism. But, shortly after desegregation, that funding started to dry up now that brown people could benefit and the politics of keeping college cheap became fraught (and educating a multiracial egalitarian society became ‘communism’, which nicely dovetailed with the red scares of the time).
Then, as prices went up, loans became a thing- but loans were routinely discriminatory on things like race, gender, etc. So, when they made loans less discriminatory and easier to get, that’s when your answer became accurate: we all watched an army of MBAs swoop in and become middle-management of universities that transformed themselves to capture a share of all that available money.
Yeah, college got expensive because loans got easy to get- but the reason for loans in the first place was in large part that the right wanted to gatekeep education because they saw an educated public as a threat.
I definitely do not see how the New Deal was “dismantled”
Then you’re not looking. Glass-Steagall? Repealed under Clinton. Enforceable financial regulations? Deregulated quietly on a bipartisan basis since the 90s. Labor relations? Unions have been gutted and wage protections neglected, so much so that it became difficult to form unions. Antitrust? When the Democrats swept congress after Nixon, they retired the Democrats’ expertise on antitrust enforcement. The then-new dem leadership became fascinated with pivoting towards the center, such that the Democrats stopped representing labor and became the party of professionals. With 0 parties representing the working class and both parties engaged in the project of deregulation and privatizing public goods and services, several major parts of the New Deal were quietly neglected or just not enforced.
Today, banking is to a much greater extent regulated by private consortiums composed of… yes, bankers than it was then. The same fox that guarded the henhouse prior to the Great Depression was put in charge, and it wasn’t long before we had another depression-scale collapse.
As of the early 1970s, the robust trust-busting of the 1930s onward was quietly discontinued; the ‘watergate-baby dems’ (who were elected in the wake of Watergate) weren’t excited about monopoly enforcement. On their watch, enforcement was largely defunded. Non-enforcement of The Packers and Stockyards act eventually led to today’s state of affairs, in which there are just 4 conglomerates in the market between farm and grocer. This pattern isn’t limited to the meat industry, it is happening everywhere- middlemen control supply chains, ‘vertical integration’ and mergers and acquisitions mean producers are squeezed. That’s just plain down on the neoliberals getting hold of the Democratic party and letting corporations reassert dominance.
The New Deals/Great Society were a defining time for conservatives
If by that you mean conservatives hated everything about it and called it communism and conducted non-stop red-scares and moral panics to fight it, I suppose you’re right. That bit where conservative dems left the party- yeah, that coincided with the democrats’ embrace of the civil rights movement too, and that party realignment broadly energized the American right under the GOP banner (where before that, both parties had conservative and progressive wings)
Jesus you people are fucking exhausting the way you write like you’re trying out for Last Week Tonight.
Just speak like a person. I would’ve been interested in this discussion. We’d have politely disagreed on a couple things, I’d have fixed some of your bad history, and it would’ve been fun
If you’re gonna keep writing all jackassy at least try to be funnier.
While I agree with the general thrust that more needs to be done for the average worker, your comparison of these times completely falls on its face if you speak to anyone with firsthand experience. It shouldn’t be used because it is just noise, not relevant to the world we live in.
My dad grew up in the 50s and lives with me, due to his age/health. Here’s a mix of his take and current data:
Homes have tripled in size on average. Providing for a family involves machines that take on 16 hours per day of household chores (and this number is set to increase further), which are expensive and taken for granted. Electricity and television, to say nothing of the internet, are taken for granted. Cellular phones are taken for granted.
6 children would live in a 3 bedroom house - I know this because this is how my uncles grew up in the 50s, and my grandfather wasn’t just some regular guy, he was top salesman in his compamy. The vast majority of people did not have a “couple of cars.” They had one car and the entire family packed into it without seatbelts.
You can absolutely live like it’s the 50s right now. Cancel your cable, internet, and phone. Do not own a dishwasher, wash your laundry by hand, and only bulk-buy groceries in the forms of cereal grains, meat, eggs, and vegetables. Buy nothing pre-made. Mend your own clothes. Cook everything from scratch. Don’t have air conditioning.
If this sounds like a poor, miserable existence, it’s because almost everyone lives a standard of living unimaginable in the 50s except in science fiction, and that standard is expensive.
That’s why we should help people - because our standard of living rose and we no longer see the 50s as acceptable, not because tradwives and nuclear families made the world safe for one white guy to provide for his family. We are the richest country in the world and our standard of living should be a cudgel we wield in soft-power diplomacy.
As my dad said when I read him this post: “this going back to the past shit is about the stupidest shit in the world.”
this ends up costing more where I live - its actually cheaper to run a dishwasher daily.
source: I own a dishwasher and my water bill is only like $30 - $40 in the US.
Sorry but I do all of that and it’s not any better at all. No washer/dryer, no washing machine, I live in a fucking garage and pay more rent than anyone in the 50s paid mortgage.
Houses that are glorified sheds in flood zones in the worst parts of town go for 300k+. I’m not even entry level and I can’t afford the cheapest garbage excuse for a house out here without becoming house poor. I can’t even “move where it’s cheaper” because WFH people did and now it’s not cheaper. The areas that are truly cheap, are so because there’s no work to be had around them. Can’t appreciate the low cost of an area when your unemployed.
I specifically said it wasn’t better. That’s what “massively increased standard of living” implies.
It is cheaper though, which is why you do it. I agree it sucks.
That we should make it easier to achieve a massively better life than the 50s is the intent of the post you are replying to.
I absolutely agree. I think the “smaller houses” bit just sent me off on a rant because I keep hearing that argument as a way to dismiss current housing price issues, but it’s just not the reality I see when I look at glorified sheds selling for 300k.
Well there’s also a dramatic under-supply of housing as well.
A tripling in housing cost resulting in average houses costing $80k or so, which would approximately align with price increase/sqft would be much more tenable for people.
Still, it’s a higher standard of living and more expensive though, and should be taken into account when looking to provide the right economic conditions for people. That’s why I brought that up.
Bottom line is, as always, fuck NIMBYism and build more. Big houses, small houses, multi-family housing, all of it.
No, you can’t . You can’t send your kids to a state college or university today and expect them to work their way through on part-time minimum wage and graduate without debt. Pensions are a thing of the past. Unions have been decimated and their protections have been unavailable to most workers for decades now. Today, banks are regulated by private trade associations made up of- you guessed it- banks. Today, employers buy back their own shares (which was made illegal in the 1930s and brought back in 1982) at labor’s expense. Today’s median wage buys you less than minimum wage did then.
My post above was not a call to go back to the 50s, (fuuuuuck that) it was a call to recognize that the buying power available to labor has been squeezed so hard that the middle class as a demographic is shrinking and that in turn probably causes people to lose faith in democracy. When both major parties have worked together to dismantle labor protections and to deregulate finance, is your democracy really working for you, or for corporate power?
Yes, today it’s normal to buy things that didn’t exist then, and most fatal childhood diseases have been all but wiped out, and bigger houses and a housing inventory shortage is a thing, but that’s not the whole picture by a long shot. Raw material inputs (like lumber, and basic foodstuffs) cost more in normalized labor purchasing power terms and that’s probably largely because of corporate mergers in the supply chain and wage standards have not kept up with basic costs.
I think it’s remarkably silly that so many Americans that long for the 50s to come back think they’re gone because the Democrats embraced civil rights or because of feminism and not because they joined the GOP in dismantling the New Deal.
Roughly 50% more people go to college now than in the 50s and 60s: https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics#college-enrollment-statistics
That’s why college is more expensive now. It used to be something you paid for to go, and now there are loans. This drove up demand and changed the financial incentive structure. It’s the #1 reason why I believe college should be free for the lower three quintiles.
Pensions are a crap idea and always were. Today my wife and I are straight up cashing in her pension because it’s worth more in an IRA.
Share buybacks are good for companies, workers, and the market in general - which protects 401(k)s as well. Not sure why that’s an issue for you?
Unions are expanding again and I hope that really takes off.
I definitely do not see how the New Deal was “dismantled” or that the Democrat party of today had anything to do with it. The New Deals/Great Society were a defining time for conservatives and many conservative Democrats left the party over it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#:~:text=The Second New Deal in,tenant farmers and migrant workers.
Back then, states funded their colleges- tuition wasn’t the primary funding mechanism. But, shortly after desegregation, that funding started to dry up now that brown people could benefit and the politics of keeping college cheap became fraught (and educating a multiracial egalitarian society became ‘communism’, which nicely dovetailed with the red scares of the time).
Then, as prices went up, loans became a thing- but loans were routinely discriminatory on things like race, gender, etc. So, when they made loans less discriminatory and easier to get, that’s when your answer became accurate: we all watched an army of MBAs swoop in and become middle-management of universities that transformed themselves to capture a share of all that available money.
Yeah, college got expensive because loans got easy to get- but the reason for loans in the first place was in large part that the right wanted to gatekeep education because they saw an educated public as a threat.
Then you’re not looking. Glass-Steagall? Repealed under Clinton. Enforceable financial regulations? Deregulated quietly on a bipartisan basis since the 90s. Labor relations? Unions have been gutted and wage protections neglected, so much so that it became difficult to form unions. Antitrust? When the Democrats swept congress after Nixon, they retired the Democrats’ expertise on antitrust enforcement. The then-new dem leadership became fascinated with pivoting towards the center, such that the Democrats stopped representing labor and became the party of professionals. With 0 parties representing the working class and both parties engaged in the project of deregulation and privatizing public goods and services, several major parts of the New Deal were quietly neglected or just not enforced.
Today, banking is to a much greater extent regulated by private consortiums composed of… yes, bankers than it was then. The same fox that guarded the henhouse prior to the Great Depression was put in charge, and it wasn’t long before we had another depression-scale collapse.
As of the early 1970s, the robust trust-busting of the 1930s onward was quietly discontinued; the ‘watergate-baby dems’ (who were elected in the wake of Watergate) weren’t excited about monopoly enforcement. On their watch, enforcement was largely defunded. Non-enforcement of The Packers and Stockyards act eventually led to today’s state of affairs, in which there are just 4 conglomerates in the market between farm and grocer. This pattern isn’t limited to the meat industry, it is happening everywhere- middlemen control supply chains, ‘vertical integration’ and mergers and acquisitions mean producers are squeezed. That’s just plain down on the neoliberals getting hold of the Democratic party and letting corporations reassert dominance.
If by that you mean conservatives hated everything about it and called it communism and conducted non-stop red-scares and moral panics to fight it, I suppose you’re right. That bit where conservative dems left the party- yeah, that coincided with the democrats’ embrace of the civil rights movement too, and that party realignment broadly energized the American right under the GOP banner (where before that, both parties had conservative and progressive wings)
Jesus you people are fucking exhausting the way you write like you’re trying out for Last Week Tonight.
Just speak like a person. I would’ve been interested in this discussion. We’d have politely disagreed on a couple things, I’d have fixed some of your bad history, and it would’ve been fun
If you’re gonna keep writing all jackassy at least try to be funnier.