[maxmax]

>What is "success"? Is it better looking houses? More expensive cars? Fresher food?

You need to think much more basic than that: Success is having a savings account, a roof over your head in a safe stable location so the kids can stay in the same school, reliable transportation, and a job that provides enough income for all of the above.

[wildengineer]

This is spot on. To the low skilled worker class this is all they want and they feel like they have to scrape to get it.

[aedron]

Yes! You would think that was obvious.

As a European I am shocked and appalled at the jobs members of the American working class work. Here no one is allowed to work more than 38 hours per week or have less than five weeks of paid vacation, at a minimum hourly rate of about five dollars after tax.

I am not comparing the two countries which are obviously very different in many ways, except to say that poor people in America are absolutely decrepit, which flies in the face of our image of America as a developed nation.

[cbr]

> a minimum hourly rate of about five dollars after tax

US federal minimum wage is $7.25 (and higher in many states), with income tax being functionally negative at low incomes. You could adjust downward by 10% to account for the five weeks of paid leave but that still gets you $6.50/hr.

[wfo]

Also account for the enormous cost of healthcare which is not paid for by taxes.

[kamaal]

Cut down on vacations, that video game console, that iPhone every year. Cut down on drinking, cigarettes. In fact cut away almost anything you don't 'need'(A.K.A living frugally) AND then Invest what you saved.

Give it a few years.

You are almost there...

[rl3]

Success is whatever provides an individual with a consistent feeling of happiness and fulfillment in their life.

[NhanH]

Happiness and fulfillment can be argued to be just as vain/unattainable/not a good goal etc. as any other criteria.

[meric]

For myself, personally, I identify "success" with "a feeling of having more than enough", and that's what I'm trying to cultivate.

[ams6110]

I don't like defining "success" as some kind of bare minimum. Success is, at least, being better than average.

[slmyers]

I'm pretty sure the average American has close to no saving, the rate of home ownership is falling, and as the article states many well paying jobs are evaporating.

I think it's a fair measure of success to say that a successful person owns a house, has significant savings and a decent job. Perhaps a somewhat superficial success.

[sliverstorm]

Agreed! Everyone should enjoy success, and success is being better than average.

[meric]

I don't think people should build the expectation where they require "success" to be happy - that only precludes them from being happy when they're unable to become "successful", for a variety of reasons outside of their control, for example, a car accident. It matters not whether everyone can enjoy "success", it only matters that everyone feel they have had the opportunity to be "successful" and they had a solid go at it.

With this perspective, "success" can be better than average, which is what it is a lot of the times - most lotto players thinks winning the lotto is "success", and winning the lotto is by definition to achieve a financial outcome that is above the average of all financial outcomes that can occur from playing the lotto.

[robgibbons]

If success is being better than average, then not everyone could enjoy it, or else success would just be the average.

[throwaway2048]

>99% everyone on earth has more than the statistical mean amount of legs.

[digbyloftus]

Statistical mean would seem like a poor choice in determining average in that case then.

[pyre]

I think that @sliverstorm was conveying that idea via sarcasm.

[zardo]

What's the unit of measure of success? Networth-Orgasms/kgCO2?

[VLM]

The traditional definition is something along the lines of not being a limiter on the lower rungs of the Maslow hierarchy.

Can't feel safe, or the higher levels, if you don't have the money for food or medical care, etc.