[gruez]

>but the majority of middle-class Americans are poorer than people in the Southeast Asian backwater I’m from

Source? I find this hard to believe given the US leads the OECD in terms of household disposable income[1], never mind whatever "Southeast Asian backwater" country you're talking about. It's unlikely "US healthcare profiteering" would affect this. Healthcare spending in the US is 17.6% of GDP, which provides an upper limit on how much it can eat into income. Even if you assume all that's borne by households and subtract that from income figures, the US would still be in #2.

[1] https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/household-disposable...

[betaby]

> household disposable income

That doesn't matter a slightest if people can't afford housing. Income is indeed disposed, without much to show off.

[gruez]

That's unlikely to change the conclusion. US household income is so high and south east asia is so poor that it's impossible to claim it's poorer than some "Southeast Asian backwater", even if adjust for high housing prices, healthcare, and cost of living (which already includes both).

[dralley]

Disposable income by definition is post-expenses, which includes housing expenses.

[insane_dreamer]

No, that's not what disposable income means.

Disposable income means income after taxes. It does not include any expenses, housing, health care, or otherwise.

from the OECD website:

> Income includes wages and salaries, mixed income (income from self-employment and unincorporated enterprises), income from pensions and other social benefits, and income from financial investments. It is less taxes on income, wealth, social security contributions paid by employees, the self-employed and the unemployed, interest on financial liabilities, and the change in net equity of households in pension funds.

A bit of a clearer explanation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

The reason why the US has such high disposable income is because Americans have to pay for so much more out of pocket than other OECD countries do. Once you factor in health care, education and other social services that are cheap or free elsewhere, Americans are generally worse off than many OECD countries.

[thejazzman]

This isn't true. And while you're welcome to disagree with me, I've never seen anyone refer to it this way outside of this HN thread.

The Oxford dictionary states "income remaining after deduction of taxes and other mandatory charges, available to be spent or saved as one wishes."

Mandatory charges, to most people outside of this HN thread, are their bills and other common expenses. Mortgages, utilities, school and incomes taxes, etc are considered mandatory charges.

I'm not saying this to argue with you. Ya'll are welcome to interpret it how you like. But if you don't consider this perspective, you are going to misunderstand what other people intend to express when they use the term disposable income.

[insane_dreamer]

that may be what "mandatory charges" means to you, but it's not what it means in economic data.

mandatory charges are "mandatory" in the sense you are "mandated" by the gov to pay them; besides taxes these include social security contributions (some countries have more such "contributions"). The are no mandates (laws, regulations) that require you to pay for housing, food, education, etc.

[cloverich]

disposable vs discretionary income perhaps?

[phkahler]

Interest on financial liabilities? Does that include mortgage interest? That's a big chunk for many Americans, but wouldn't include rent?

[knubie]

From that wikipedia article:

> It may include near-cash government transfers like food stamps, and it may be adjusted to include social transfers in-kind, such as the value of publicly provided health care and education.

Additionally from the OECD website:

> Household adjusted disposable income additionally reallocates "income" from government and Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISHs) to households to reflect social transfers in kind. These transfers reflect expenditures made by government or NPISHs on individual goods and services, such as health and education, on behalf of an individual household.

[insane_dreamer]

that still doesn't take into account the fact that US households must spend much more on healthcare and education than the expenditures made by EU governments on those same services.

Also housing is more expensive in the US (total cost, not per sqft), as is food; in fact, the cost of living in general in the US is more expensive than Europe or Japan, with the notable exception of cars and gas.

For example, I just searched cost of living in France vs USA and the first two sites I found gave similar figures of 30% more in the US. Not representative of all of Europe of course but an interesting data point.

https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/france/united...

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_resu...

[knubie]

Accrding to the wikipedia article you referenced, the OECD data is already adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), which is a cost of living adjustment. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

[smnrchrds]

"Disposable income" means income after taxes. The word you are looking for is "discretionary income", which means income after taxes and necessities.

[Spivak]

All the replies have me so confused, I have never heard an actual real life human being use the term disposable income to mean anything other than post-expense income.

So you have at least one other person who uses the word like that.

[olyjohn]

Yeah how is rent money different from taxes? For most people, you HAVE to pay rent/mortgage/shelter expenses.

I suppose you can live on the street, or move in with relatives.

On that note, you can also choose not to pay your taxes, but you'll also have to deal with those consequences.

[chelical]

Housing isn't that expensive or unaffordable in the US unless you want to live in NYC or SF.

[linsomniac]

Northern CO here, my daughter had big plans of finding someplace to live with 2-4 of her friends after graduating high school, but they all quickly decided that was not at all workable due to housing costs.

[mcmcmc]

This just isn’t true

[nradov]

[flagged]

[dang]

"Don't be snarky."

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[AnthonyMouse]

This is Texas:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TXSTHPI

It's worse in San Francisco, but it's a nation-wide problem.

[eitally]

I would argue that it's worse now in high COL TX metros than it is in the bay area, because even if home values are still lower in Austin, for example, Texas property taxes are brutal compared to CA and have increased dramatically [in line with property value appreciation], which Prop 13 doesn't allow to happen in CA.

[olyjohn]

I can tell you haven't ever actually shopped for housing outside of a major city.

[lolinder]

Housing cost complaints are dramatically overstated on HN because SF and Seattle are dramatically overrepresented. Housing has definitely become more expensive on average in much of the country over the last few years, but it's not as crazy an issue in most places as it is in the places many HNers live, and there are plenty of places where housing is actually still quite cheap (for example, most of the Midwest).

[insane_dreamer]

> housing is actually still quite cheap ... most of the Midwest

not based on the data

change in median housing prices as per Zillow, since 2017

Minneapolis: +50% https://www.zillow.com/home-values/5983/minneapolis-mn/

Omaha: +80% https://www.zillow.com/home-values/40152/omaha-ne/

St Louis: +62% https://www.zillow.com/home-values/6891/saint-louis-mo/

KC: +94% https://www.zillow.com/home-values/18795/kansas-city-mo/

OKC: +68% https://www.zillow.com/home-values/33225/oklahoma-city-ok/

Des Moines: +68% https://www.zillow.com/home-values/17759/des-moines-ia/

Milwaukee: +119% https://www.zillow.com/home-values/5976/milwaukee-wi/

Indianapolis: +103% https://www.zillow.com/home-values/32149/indianapolis-in/

Little Rock: +38% https://www.zillow.com/home-values/52998/little-rock-ar/

etc.

[lapcat]

> there are plenty of places where housing is actually still quite cheap (for example, most of the Midwest).

The housing market in Madison, Wisconsin is crazy. I sold my house 8 years ago, and now its estimated value is 70% higher than my selling price. I know a lot of people in the area who are despondent about the prices.

[lolinder]

I said most. There are exceptions, of course.

[lapcat]

> I said most.

Ok, but what's the empirical justification for this claim? Why is Madison, Wisconsin a rare exception?

[insane_dreamer]

when there are enough exceptions, they are no longer exceptions

[insane_dreamer]

there are areas where housing is still cheap (rural Iowa, Arkansas, etc.), but they're not areas where there are jobs so it doesn't matter how cheap it is

almost any major city these days housing is much more expensive than it used to be relative to income

[MichaelZuo]

It’s also quite bizarre to read these endless complaints, because by definition roughly 1 percent of communities must be in the 99th percentile of communities in terms of unaffordability.

Edit: That can never change either, in aggregate, so it’s literally futile to complain about it in general terms.

[davidgay]

Disposable income is measured after housing expenses.

[insane_dreamer]

Incorrect. See below.

[bruce511]

Both positions can be true - what you said, and what the parent said.

The problem with what you said is that it's a statistic lumping all households together. As such it's largely meaningless because it lumps Elon's household with some person living in a trailer park in Montana. They are unlikely to have similar disposable income.

Equally, while health care might represent 17.6% of GDP, this of course provides no limit on any one person or group. Indeed, assuming that most billionaires are not spending 17.6% one can assume the real cost to many I'd much (much) higher than that.

No to the parent's statement about "poorer". There are many things to measure here beyond just "cash in the bank". And there are terms like "middle class" and "majority" which are imprecise.

Nevertheless the point, as an anecdote stands. While America the country is rich, not all the people in it are. Indeed it seems to be increasingly split into rich and poor - the middle class is shrinking.

The good news though is two fold. Firstly most Americans seem happy with this setup (presumably because it maintains the illusion that they can obe day be rich.)

Secondly the majority of (not rich) people believe that having rich people in charge will benefit them. No doubt the incoming government of billionaires is something to look forward to.

Which is all yo say that each country gets what they want. The US _wants_ for-profit health care. They believe it is the best in the world. Other countries think its bonkers and have other approaches. That's perfectly OK.

Indeed this is democracy in action. We vote for people who will best do what we want them to do. Who guide us, not just by their words but their actions. We clearly understand the actions of the incoming guy (he's been there before). He's clearly pro-health-company (not pro health consumer) so this is (quite literally) what people want.

The future looks very bright indeed!

[refurb]

> The problem with what you said is that it's a statistic lumping all households together. As such it's largely meaningless because it lumps Elon's household with some person living in a trailer park in Montana.

No, because it's a median value, thus outliers are irrelevant.

[bruce511]

Is it a median? The site doesn't say (that I can see) but the text seems to suggest an average, not a median.

But even if it's a median, the point stands. At least half the country falls below this standard.

Equally the distribution of outliers is not balanced. There are a lot lot more outliers (far from the median) on the up side than the down side.

[kelseyfrog]

There are at least three kinds of averages: mean, median, and mode.

[gruez]

>The problem with what you said is that it's a statistic lumping all households together. As such it's largely meaningless because it lumps Elon's household with some person living in a trailer park in Montana. They are unlikely to have similar disposable income.

If a sibling comment[1] is to be believed, the "Southeast Asian backwater" in question seems to be Bangladesh. Looking at GDP per capita PPP (ie. adjusted for cost of living), united states is nearly 10x as rich. Is it possible to construct a hypothetical where a country has 10x higher GDP per capita than other, but the average citizen is poorer? Yes. Is that actually occurring? Unlikely.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42630667

>Nevertheless the point, as an anecdote stands. While America the country is rich, not all the people in it are. Indeed it seems to be increasingly split into rich and poor - the middle class is shrinking.

I don't know how you can possibly interpret the parent comment as just an "anecdote". It's specifically making claims about "the majority of middle-class Americans".

[ranger_danger]

> most Americans seem happy with this setup

> The US _wants_ for-profit health care

> We vote for people who will best do what we want them to do

> The future looks very bright indeed!

What did I just read.

[bandrami]

It's a puzzling but stubbornly true aspect of the US electorate: replacing private insurance with a universal program polls at like 20%. People like the idea of a universal health insurance program but don't, themselves, want to be enrolled in it.

[bruce511]

How do you interpret the most recent results differently?

(Feel free to read some sarcasm / blind adherence to democracy into the earlier post, but its hard to interpret the election results in another way.)

[ashoeafoot]

The us is rich in pride, which if you divide it by baseballstatistic books and multiplicate by the size if the country is the only ritches that matter..