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by adventured
2582 days ago
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The real median household income is up over 43% since 1990. It's up 62% for the bottom 20%.[1] It's popular to claim that wages have gone nowhere for ~40 years, it's never supported by the actual data. The premise requires that one ignores the cost of health coverage in the US that is commonly paid for or heavily subsidized by an employer (the employee would have to pay far higher taxes for that otherwise, given the per capita healthcare cost in the US is now ~$11,000 -- $33,000 for a family of three). It ignores pretty much every benefit that employees receive today, that did not exist in the early 1970s, including 401k matching. If companies weren't paying for healthcare benefits, the employees would see their taxes skyrocket. That's a dramatic, obvious, direct wage benefit. In socialized systems such as are common in Europe, the companies do not pay nearly so much for healthcare coverage, instead individuals pay far higher personal taxes, while the average corporate income tax rate is low. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-15/wage-s... |
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The data is available from the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics https://www.bls.gov . The Economist's gloomy figures were right, but are gloomier if pushed back a few years as 1979 was a nadir any how.
> health
The US is off the charts in terms of health costs compared to other industrialized countries, and big business has arranged it so it is the only industrialized country with people not under health coverage.
> 401k
US Workers used to have guaranteed pensions, the 401k was a backward step, not some new benefit
Plus the fact that Google workers have all these things, and some other workers may have some if these things doesn't modify that wages have fallen.
The US has skyrocketing health care compared to everyone else, with some unconvered unlike every other industrialized countries, and guaranteed pensions no longer exist - not great arguments for an improvement.
People are not stupid, they know things are not better, despite think tank commissars trying to present ways that they are.