| I'm more than happy to answer your questions, at least insofar as you are inquiring about facts: > How much time do working people need to work every day to earn enough to reproduce themselves? The Economist article linked above says that adjusted for inflation and taxes, less than one fifth as many people struggle to do so as compared to 40 years ago. Sure, it's valid to say that the percentage of people that experience that struggle (~3-4%) is still a figure that is unacceptably high. But it has been a drastic reduction from what it was four decades earlier (over 15%). > College education is now expected for many jobs (working people reproducing themselves means the next generation having access to similar jobs). A strange observation to make, seeing as the non-college educated reproduce at a greater rate than those who do.[1] > What about healthcare, rent/home prices? I mention that those are exceptions to the overall trend, but also explain that those are due to well known reasons: a large ageing generation, and an unwillingness to build housing in many growing metro areas. They are not cause by inequality, though good arguments can be made that they exacerbate it. > Food and clothing prices have declined a lot, but the other prices have risen to a much greater proportion of median income. Sure, some things like housing have gotten more expensive. But plenty of others have gotten cheaper. In aggregate, costs are going down. That's what the Economist article I linked above explains. > How many people are now working two or more "part-time" jobs for a total of more than 40 hours a week? People are spending less time on work on average.[2] 1. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/97facts/edu2birt.htm 2. https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/520f835b6bb3f7730d000... |
You've misinterpreted his use of the word "reproduce". It's not about birth rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproduction_(economics)